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Prime-Time Hate From Arafat
TV
Posted Dec. 17,
2002
By Kenneth R. Timmerman in
Jerusalem
Arafat
continues inciting Palestinian children
against their neighbors, even if it means
death.
The five-minute video clip could have
been produced by Jennifer Lopez to the
music of Pink Floyd. It is professional,
dreamy and haunting. It begins with a
handsome young schoolboy writing a
farewell letter to his parents. In this
pop saga the boy goes off on a "mission"
in which he dies, and his farewell letter
is handed to his father, who tears his
hair at the news. Scenes of the boy's last
day scroll across the screen as an
enchanting male voice puts the words of
his letter to a haunting melody. "Do not
be sad, my dear, and do not cry over my
parting. Oh, my dear father; how sweet is
Shahada [martyrdom]. How sweet is
Shahada when I embrace you, oh my
land."
In the video the boy embraces the
ground with his arms stretched out as upon
a cross. His death is gentle, innocent,
heroic -- not at all the brutal
dismemberment that awaits suicide bombers.
"Mother, my most dear, be joyous over my
blood," he sings. "And do not cry for
me."
That same line, "Mother, do not cry for
me," has appeared in at least three
farewell letters from 14- to 17-year-old
Palestinians who have carried out suicide
bombings since the film clip first aired
on Palestinian television in May 2001,
says Itamar Marcus, an Israeli researcher
who unearthed the music videos. Yasser
Arafat's official TV station broadcast the
dreamy clip virtually every day for more
than a year in a clear effort to incite
children to murder/suicide. It aired
between cartoons, after school and in the
early evening between regularly scheduled
programs. Marcus plans to play these clips
to a congressional committee later this
month and is urging the United States to
pressure the Palestinian leader to stop
the deadly propaganda.
"For the six years we'd been following
PA [Palestinian Authority] TV,
we'd seen on average 15 minutes of
violent, anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic
video clips, interspersed between regular
programming throughout the day," Marcus
tells Insight in Jerusalem. "Suddenly, in
the summer of 2000, it went up to two
hours per day, just as [former Israeli
prime minister Ehud] Barak was getting
ready to give away 98 percent of the
territory the PA wanted at Camp
David."
In the beginning, the violent trailers
mostly were composed of old news footage
edited to glamorize suicide bombings and
to call people to the streets. But soon,
professional filmmakers were called in to
take advantage of their special
skills.
Twelve-year-old Mohammad al-Dura is the
most famous Palestinian "martyr." Images
captured live by a Palestinian film crew
and broadcast by French state-owned
television on Oct. 2, 2000, show the boy
shot to death in his father's arms,
presumably by Israeli soldiers. Now he has
become the posthumous star of a
five-minute film clip produced and edited
by Arafat's official state-owned TV. The
opening screen is a handwritten message
"signed" by the young Mohammad: "I am
waving to you not to say goodbye, but to
say, follow me." A child actor depicts the
death of the young Mohammad, said to have
been "massacred" by Israeli soldiers, then
portrays him in paradise, riding on a
Ferris wheel, flying a kite and playing on
the beach. A haunting lyric accompanies
these pictures, with lines including the
following: "How sweet is the fragrance of
the Shahids. How sweet is the scent of the
earth, its thirst quenched by the gush of
blood flowing from the youthful body."
Then the vocalist does repeats with a
choir:
Vocalist: "Oh father; till we meet. Oh
father; till we meet. I shall go with no
fear, no tears. How sweet is the fragrance
of the Shahids."
Choir: "How sweet is the fragrance of
the Shahids."
The controversy over whose bullets
actually killed Mohammad al-Dura remains.
The Western media, led by the French News
Agency and French A2 television, still
insist that he was killed by Israelis. But
an investigation by the Israeli army
raised serious doubts, since Israeli
soldiers would have had to shoot around a
corner to hit him.
"These are the most evil films we ever
saw," Marcus tells Insight as he plays a
selection of these video clips, with
English subtitles provided by his
Palestinian Media Watch.
One of the many myths spread by
left-wing academics and apologists for
terrorism is that suicide bombers come
from poor families where "hopelessness"
drives them to despair and suicide. But,
ever since Israel and the Clinton
administration brought Arafat to Gaza in
July 1994, he has been fostering hatred of
Jews and promoting the cult of martyrdom
through the schools, the mosques and the
state-owned media. In eight years, the
virus has infected all sectors of
Palestinian society.
"The new role model for young
Palestinian women is Wafa Idriss, the
first female suicide bomber," Marcus says.
Idriss blew herself up in Jerusalem on
Jan. 27, 2002, killing an 81-year-old
Israeli man and wounding 150 others, four
seriously. "We're beginning to see her
name pop up everywhere," Marcus says.
"There's the Wafa Idriss course in human
rights and democracy at Al-Quds University
in Jerusalem. There are Wafa Idriss
schools run by the United Nations. It's
incredible."
On June 9, 2002, two well-dressed
11-year-old girls named Wala and Yussra
were interviewed on a talk show broadcast
by PA TV about their personal yearning to
achieve death through Shahada, which they
said is the desire of "every Palestinian
child." These were not children of the
camps, but from the middle classes. They
explained that their goal was not to
become doctors or teachers, but to achieve
a proper death through martyrdom for
Allah.
Host: "You described Shahada as
something beautiful. Do you think it is
beautiful?"
Wala: "Shahada is very, very beautiful.
Everyone yearns for Shahada. What could be
better than going to paradise?"
Host: "What is better, peace and full
rights for the Palestinian people, or
Shahada?"
Wala: "Shahada. I will achieve my
rights after becoming a Shahida."
Yussra: "Of course Shahada is a good
thing. We don't want this world; we want
the afterlife. We benefit not from this
life, but from the afterlife. The children
of Palestine have accepted the concept
that this is Shahada, and that death by
Shahada is very good. Every Palestinian
child aged, say 12, says: 'Oh Lord, I
would like to become a Shahid.'"
Yet another film clip aimed at children
intersperses scenes of "martyred" children
about to be buried with normal street
scenes of children playing. It ends with a
black screen stamped with the official
crest of the PA and a slogan in Arabic
with its English translation: "Ask for
death, the life will be given to you."
There is no precedent for this type of
indoctrination. "Not even Hitler did
this," Marcus says. "The Hitler Youth were
taught to kill, not to be killed. This is
the ultimate in child abuse. Here you have
a whole generation of kids who think the
most they can accomplish in life is to die
for Allah. This is a tragedy with
implications that no one in the West has
begun to contemplate."
Some Palestinian parents have tried to
raise their voices against the barbarity
of the PA indoctrination, but to little
effect. Bassam Zakhout is the father of a
14-year-old boy who set off in April with
two schoolmates to attack an Israeli
military outpost near the Netzarim
settlement in Gaza. Prompted by the calls
to martyrdom the three teen-agers armed
themselves with knives and packed their
schoolbags with explosives, apparently
given to them by Hamas, and ran across
open ground toward the army post, where
they were gunned down. Bassam Zakhout
blamed PA TV for inciting the attack. "I
am against all this, especially at his
age," he said. "We should not destroy this
generation. They are the leaders of the
future."
After plastering Gaza with posters of
the three "martyrs," Hamas was too
embarrassed to claim responsibility once
it heard the father's remark. "The blood
of our cubs should be preserved for a
coming day when they become strong men,"
said a Hamas statement issued soon
afterward. "Their role in jihad is for
later." Even Arafat's deputy education
minister, Naim Abu-Hummos, decried their
deaths. "What's happening is crazy," he
said, vowing to instruct Palestinian
teachers to stop glorifying martyrs.
But those thoughts, if sincere, were
short-lived. Addressing a chanting
auditorium full of children in August,
Arafat put an end to any doubts: "Oh,
children of Palestine! The colleagues,
friends, brothers and sisters of Faris
Ouda [a 14-year-old who died in the
conflict]. The colleagues of this hero
represent this immense and fundamental
power that is within, and it shall be
victorious, with Allah's will! One of you,
a boy or a girl, shall raise the
[Palestinian] flag over the walls
of Jerusalem, its mosques and its
churches. ... Onward together to
Jerusalem!"
As the children responded with wild
cheering and chanting, Arafat shouted:
"Millions of Shahada marching to
Jerusalem!"
In signing the Oslo Declaration of
Principals in September 1993, Arafat
pledged to put an end to incitement and
hate education. Nine years later, his
refusal to live up to that commitment has
paid off in hundreds of innocent deaths on
both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian
divide.
[These and other PA TV video clips
for children can be viewed at
www.pmw.org.il.]
Kenneth R. Timmerman is a senior writer
for Insight magazine.
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