PA libel: Israel spreads drugs to harm Palestinians
PA libel: Israel spreads drugs
to harm Palestinians
to harm Palestinians
PA official: "There is also an enemy:
Drugs spread by the occupation"
Israel "harm[s] our society's infrastructure
and our youth" with drugs
"One of the weapons" Israel uses is drugs
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
In the attempt to demonize Israel, the Palestinian Authority has a policy of slandering Israel with libels and lies. One recurring libel documented by Palestinian Media Watch is that Israel deliberately spreads drugs to harm Palestinian youth in Jerusalem to destroy their future.
In an interview on official PA TV, PA District Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh Laila Ghannam accused Israel of spreading drugs:
"There is an occupation and there is also an enemy:
Drugs spread by the occupation."
Click to viewDrugs spread by the occupation."
The official PA daily repeated her statement:
"The occupation is the biggest problem and drugs are one of the means with which the occupation planned to harm our society's infrastructure and our youth."
Issam Jwehan, the director of a UN- and EU-supported NGO, the Al-Maqdese for Society Development, stated on PA TV News that Israel uses drugs as "a weapon" to Judaize Jerusalem:
"The occupation controls the land and tries to control the [Arab] residents of Jerusalem. One of the weapons it uses to Judaize Jerusalem is drugs."
Click to viewEarlier this year, Khaled Hammad, Deputy Director of the Jerusalem Education Administration, claimed that Israel deliberately attempts to turn young Palestinians into drug addicts because Israelis "have no interest in an educated [Palestinian] generation developing":
"These people [Israelis] don't want an educated and learned generation [of Arabs] in Jerusalem at all. They try to turn Jerusalem's [Arab] youth into drug addicts just like all the things that are done against the residents of Jerusalem."
Click to viewView more examples of the PA libel that Israel deliberately spreads drugs among Palestinians.
PMW has documented other libels spread by the PA. Among others, it is claimed that Israel murdered Arafat, has plans to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and steals organs from Palestinians.
The following are longer excerpts of the statements accusing Israel of deliberately spreading drugs among Palestinians:
"District Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh, Laila Ghannam... said: 'Like any nation in the world, we have social problems...' She made it clear that the main problem from which the district suffers is drug distribution, and said: 'The occupation is the biggest problem and drugs are one of the means with which the occupation planned to harm our society's infrastructure and our youth.' Nonetheless, she emphasized that drugs have not reached the level of a social phenomenon."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 22, 2013]
PA TV's Young People of the Country's reporter Hiba Hassoun presented topics discussed on the program during the year, including:
"The drugs that the occupation is trying to spread among our young people in Area C that is under Israeli control."
[Official Palestinian Authority TV, July 2, 2013]
PA TV News interviews District Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh Laila Ghannam:
"Everyone should take part, not only the [Palestinian] state's institutions and the official forces, in the battle against this plague (i.e., drugs)... There is an occupation and there is also an enemy: Drugs spread by the occupation."
[Official Palestinian Authority TV, June 26, 2013]
PA TV News interviews the director of the Palestinian NGO, the Al-Maqdese for Society Development, Issam Jwehan:
"The occupation controls the land and tries to control the [Arab] residents of Jerusalem. One of the weapons it uses to Judaize Jerusalem is drugs."
"The occupation controls the land and tries to control the [Arab] residents of Jerusalem. One of the weapons it uses to Judaize Jerusalem is drugs."
[Official Palestinian Authority TV, June 26, 2013]
Note: The NGO Al- Maqdese for Society Development lists on its website the organization's "Donors and Partners", among them: UNDP (United Nations Development Program), UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), EU, France, Spain, Italy, the American organization National Endowment for Democracy, Norwegian People's Aid, Polish Aid, and Save the Children - Sweden.
[Al-Maqdese website, accessed Aug. 4, 2013
http://www.al-maqdese.org/en/2/1/110]
http://www.al-maqdese.org/en/2/1/110]
PA TV's program for young people, Speak Up, interviewed Khaled Hammad, Deputy Director of the Jerusalem Education Administration, about the reasons students drop out of school.
Khaled Hammad: "They [the students who dropped out of school] mentioned many things. It could be that getting connected with negative elements plays [a part]. And sometimes the occupation has a hidden role in this."
PA TV host: "Of course."
Khaled Hammad: "These people [Israelis] don't want an educated and learned generation [of Arabs] in Jerusalem at all. They try to turn Jerusalem's [Arab] youth into drug addicts just like all the things that are done against the residents of Jerusalem."
[Official Palestinian Authority TV, Jan. 20, 2013,
co-produced with PYALARA (EU-funded NGO]
PYALARA's website mentions that it is sponsored by NDC. NDC lists as its supporters the European Union, the World Bank, the French government's Agence Française de Développement, a donor consortium of Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, the Islamic Development Bank, the United Palestinian Appeal, and the Palestinian private organization the Welfare Association.
[PYALARA website, accessed Sept. 9,
http://www.pyalara.org/donors.php?lang=1,
NDC website, accessed Sept. 9, http://www.ndc.ps/doners-view]
http://www.pyalara.org/donors.php?lang=1,
NDC website, accessed Sept. 9, http://www.ndc.ps/doners-view]