28-Oct-08: Hate-based education... and the ignorance that sustains it

Whenever the perennial question of "Is there ever going to be a solution to the Arab-Israel conflict?" comes up, our answer is consistent.

"Yes", we say. "There is going to be a resolution because the pain and heartbreak that war brings with it is eventually unbearable, and people have to find a way. We're optimistic they will, sooner or later."

"But", we always add, "first the appalling way in which the official arms of Palestinian Arab society educate their children have to totally change. Until the PA and Hamas stop the endless inculcation of hatred via their school text books and the official curriculum of their education system, nothing will change. You can not educate towards the painful compromises that are inseparable from the peace process while teaching your children to hate."

Some get it, some don't. But we have no doubt that what we described is at the heart of this ongoing war.

Today, Barbara Crook and Itamar Marcus who have done invaluable work via Palestinian Media Watch since 1996 published an op ed in the Jerusalem Post that identifies the process sharply and with concrete examples. It's the sort of analysis and expose that ought to get maximum exposure. But because it punctures some of the most widely-held beliefs - and especially the one that holds that the Mahmoud Abbas Fatah regime holds the key to peace with Israel - the PMW article will be mostly ignored or buried.

Here is part of what they say:

Would you sign a check for $120 million and hand it over to a former terrorist without carefully supervising what he was doing with your money? That's exactly what Norway, chair of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee that co-ordinates international funding to the Palestinian Authority, is doing with its taxpayers' money.
In response to extensive documentation by Palestinian Media Watch about the hate promotion on official Palestinian Authority-Fatah TV, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre recently made a series of statements defending PA TV that indicate he is totally ignorant of its content. Then, to put his money where his misinformed mouth is, he wrote another check for 85 million kroner to the PA under Mahmoud Abbas, whose office controls PA TV...
The world was incensed when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced his vision of a world without Israel, and there were calls to put him on trial. Yet when Abbas's TV teaches Palestinian children the identical vision of a world without Israel, Western countries run for their checkbooks to keep funding him. The PA openly glorifies terrorists...
The Palestinians have the inalienable right to indoctrinate their kids to blind evil and hate, but Norway and the West have the moral obligation to stop paying for it.

The full article is definitely worth your time. Please pass it along to whoever needs to know about the central role of hate-based education in the perpetuation by Palestinian Arab society of this ongoing war. Fix this one issue, and all of us - but especially the children of Palestinian Arab society - are going to be healthier, happier, safer and facing a much brighter future.