PA youth magazine calls terrorists “legitimate” and rejects coexistence with Israel

Op-ed by Muhammad Jaradat, reviewing the Israeli film “Lemon Tree”:
     “After watching Israeli director Eran Riklis’ Israeli film ‘Lemon Tree’, I tried to identify the picture depicted by the movie’s director and its heroes. I came to the conclusion that this is Israeli cinema’s new way of portraying the nature of the conflict that has been raging for more than 65 years. [In this portrayal] the image of an ideal Jew [appears], peace-loving and merciful, who loves everyone, especially his Palestinian neighbors – as long as those neighbors don’t start a fight with him – as if the Palestinians are the reason for everything that has happened since 1948 and that is still happening; as if the Palestinians are the ones who attacked Jews, set fire to their cities and villages and carried out ethnic cleansing in them, and not the Hagana, Stern and Palmach gangs (i.e., Jewish pre-state armed defense units)!
Despite all this, the Israeli director does identify with the peaceful Palestinian who does not harm the State of Israel, but whose rights are still violated and whose land is stolen under the pretext of [providing] security and protection to Israeli citizens…
The [Israeli-Palestinian] problem, as the Israeli Left presents it, stems from the terrorists – the legitimate Palestinian resistance – whose presence will prevent an Arab-Israeli bond and peaceful coexistence. As if the problem did not stem fundamentally from the existence of an ‘Israeli’ entity, which has no legitimacy or right to exist on Palestinian land, and which is the reason for all this destruction and the root of the problems.”

Note: Zayzafuna is a PLO magazine for children partially funded by the PA. The magazine includes material written by both the magazine’s staff and child readers.