PMW making news in world parliaments
Palestinian Media Watch Director Itamar Marcus recently met with members of Swedish, British and Australian Parliaments as well as members of the EU Parliament. He presented PMW's findings to the MPs, documenting the PA and Fatah's support and promotion of the current wave of Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis.
The following are some of the reactions by the MPs:
Ma'ariv/NRG:
The Jerusalem Post:
Brussels Times
The Jerusalem Post
The following are more extended selections from the recent news reports on lectures PMW Director Itamar Marcus gave to members of parliaments from Sweden, Britain, Australia, and European Parliament.
Headline: Swedish opposition lawmakers to call Wallström out over Palestinian incitement (Jan. 20, 2016)
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Swedish opposition MPs said Tuesday evening that they would call the country's foreign minister, Margot Wallström, to a mandatory parliamentary debate regarding incitement to violence emanating from the Palestinian Authority, as well as rising concerns over foreign aid given to the PA.
The comments were made during a meeting at the Swedish parliament in Stockholm initiated by MP Mikael Oscarsson of the Christian Democrats... Seven Swedish MPs from four parties attended the meeting.
They were addressed by Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch, who highlighted in particular recent comments made by Jibril Rajoub, deputy secretary of the Fatah Central Committee, where Rajoub expressed support and encouragement for Palestinian violence against Israelis.
"I say that whoever carried out individual acts of heroism, we in the Fatah movement bless and encourage them. We consider them heroes and a crown on the head of every Palestinian," Rajoub said on January 2 in reference to the wave of knife attacks, car rammings and other forms of terrorism carried out in recent months against Israelis.
The MPs were also shown examples of incitement from other PA officials, as well as incitement from PA-controlled media and social media accounts.
MP Margareta Cederfeldt (Moderate Party) said that "the incitement in the Palestinian schools is appalling and shocking," while Oscarsson was similarly disturbed.
"We must check where the funding that we send to the PA is going. We cannot support incitement to terror," he said.
"We will call Foreign Minister Wallström to the plenum and force her to answer the evidence of incitement that we just saw."
Marcus called for the Swedish parliament to sanction Rajoub for his encouragement of violence against Israeli civilians.
"There have to be political ramifications to calls for murder by senior PA and Fatah officials," he told the lawmakers.
"Especially since Rajoub said that the PA is watching to see the international community's response to its killing of Israelis, to be silent now following these statements by Rajoub is perceived by the PA as a green light to murder, and is facilitating murder," Marcus went on.
"Sweden, along with all European countries, has a moral obligation to distance itself from Rajoub in a clear and politically meaningful way, including prohibiting his entry into Sweden, as they would to any other open promoter of murder."
The Swedish MPs are also seeking to advance a resolution raised in parliament to censure Rajoub for his comments, to ban him from Sweden until he retracts them, and to condemn the Fatah party.
A briefing was held in Swedish Parliament on the topic of "Impediments to Peace," presented by Itamar Marcus, Director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), sponsored by Swedish MP Mikael Oscarsson.
Oscarsson said at the end of the discussion that 'The evidence shocked us. We intend to call Foreign Minister Wallström in order to have a public confrontation in the plenary to have her respond to our questions following the material presented to us [by PMW director Itamar Marcus].' Several local MPs and Israeli representatives participated in the briefing...
At the end of the event, [PMW Director Itamar] Marcus said in a conversation with NRG that "The general message that I want to present here in Sweden is that the main reason that we have so many young [Palestinian] terrorists in recent months is because the average Palestinian child is surrounded from such a young age by incitement and lies that he cannot distinguish them from reality. Palestinian children grow up to see terrorists as heroes and role models." Marcus showed the MPs a football tournament for children in Ramallah named after Ahmad Manasrah, the 13-year-old terrorist who was murdered according to [PA Chairman] Mahmoud Abbas (- but was in fact receiving treatment in an Israeli hospital -Ed.). All of the children saw a trophy in his name. "At the same time," Marcus said, 'there are many schools named after terrorists and murderers. The [Palestinian] child is not guilty because he has no way to distinguish or learn another way.'"
"It was amazing," summarizes former member of Knesset Dov Lipman, "to hear the responses of the MPs when they saw the videos with the very problematic statements by Fatah members." Lipman noted that MP Oscarsson related to the fact that the Swedish government financially supports the PA, and said that "It is important for us to understand that we will support them only without there being incitement to murder, in order to promote peace between two peoples." He also related to the statements of the foreign minister [Wallström] and said that he and his colleagues would try to make the financial aid to the PA dependent on their cessation of incitement in schools and the media.
As relations between Sweden and Israel grow increasingly tense, a small group of Swedish MPs vowed Tuesday to publicly challenge their foreign minister's controversial call last week for an investigation into what she termed Israel's "extrajudicial executions" of Palestinians...
During the Tuesday Stockholm meeting, the MPs were briefed by Itamar Marcus, founder of the Palestinian Media Watch, a watchdog group that monitors the Palestinian Authority for anti-Israel bias. Marcus presented examples of official PA media messages that glorify the killing of Jews, such as officials' publicly calling for the killing of Jews, and the naming of schools and recreational facilities after terrorists.
Oscarsson, one of the few outspoken supporters of the Jewish state in the Swedish parliament, said the materials presented by Marcus further emboldened him to challenge Wallström's comments and the government's stance on Israel.
"This evidence is shocking. We are going to call Foreign Minister Wallström to a public debate in the plenum to answer questions about what we have seen," he said.
Israel claims that the current violence was triggered by incitement in Palestinian media and continues because of the glorification of terrorists by the Palestinian Authority.
At a hearing in the European Parliament last week (13.1.2016), an Israeli NGO, Palestinian Media Watch, claimed that 25 Palestinian schools have been named after terrorists. The schools are indirectly funded by EU since it pays the teachers' salaries. Palestinian TV regularly broadcasts hate speech against Israel and Jews, including by representatives of the Palestinian Authority.
Headline: Grapevine: Between Jerusalem and Berlin (Dec. 15, 2015)
Following a presentation by Itamar Marcus from Palestinian Media Watch, Dialogue participants [British and Australian MPs] went to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and the PA education minister, who were asked about the naming of a girls high school after a terrorist, Dalal Mughrabi; sporting events named after terrorists; branding anyone who supported peace initiatives through sport as traitors; and the preaching of hatred through the education system...
When questions from the delegation were put to the prime minister, the responses were varied, Sterle added.
"Firstly, there was complete denial that any schools in the West Bank were named after terrorists. He challenged us to check our information. He reiterated a number of times that our information was incorrect. But when he was returned to the question by other members of the delegation, he then went into defending the practice of 'honoring' terrorist-suicide bombers..."