Want an Israel-Palestinian peace? Stop hateful incitement of Palestinian youth

Dear Friend of FLAME:

Why is there no peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs? Last week, the U.S. State Department criticized Israel for destroying a terrorist’s home—an action the State Department said serves to “undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution.”

Surely the brutal murder of an innocent 19-year old Israeli man and the wounding of two others—which is what the Palestinian terrorist did—abundantly undercuts the prospects for peace. Surely rewarding that terrorist for his bloody act through the Palestinian Authority’s “Pay for Slay” program undercuts efforts for peace more than demolition of a terrorist’s house.

But the State Department’s is just one of many false justifications for the failure to attain an Israel-Palestinian peace (let alone a “two-state solution”). To find the real reason, we would best look at the root causes of Palestinian terrorism, which have been baked into Palestinian society for generations.

Unfortunately, many mainstream media and world leaders who claim to care about ending the conflict assert that the real obstacles are, variously, Israeli settlements, Israel’s “occupation” or Israel’s unification of Jerusalem.

In truth, none of these issues is the root cause of the conflict—because the conflict predates each of them.

In short, the conflict began because of Palestinian Arab refusal to accept the right of Jews to create a state in their indigenous homeland—a land where no other states existed—but is surrounded by hostile Arab states. This violent Arab rejectionism has been the cause of the conflict and its singular driving force for more than 100 years.

The fuel perpetuating Palestinian rejectionism over all these decades is anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement—hateful propaganda that at its worst is animated by a cult of death.

Almost every facet of Palestinian life has been engaged to spread hateful messages against Jews and Israel—whether through the media, religion, literature, songs, theater, cinema and the public space. Nowhere does this hate permeate Palestinian society more than in its indoctrination of Palestinian children and youth.

Recently, the European Parliament passed three resolutions that condemn the Palestinian Authority (PA) for continuing to teach hate and violence in its school textbooks and that oppose European Union aid to the PA being used for this purpose. German MEP Niclas Herbst of the European People’s Party stressed that “Paying teachers to teach Antisemitism and incitement to violence through Palestinian schoolbooks should never be subsidized by EU-money.”

Despite a report attached to the EU resolutions laying out numerous examples of how their education system glorifies terror —claiming that Jews are deceptive and dangerous, as well as using the term “Zionist occupation” instead of Israel—the Palestinian Authority remains unrepentant. “Everything mentioned in our school textbooks is an accurate and honest description,” said Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh.

However, the most egregious indoctrination to violence occurs at summer terrorist camps for Palestinian children. There youngsters are indoctrinated and prepared in the ways of bloodshed. Already, according to Jerusalem Post Palestinian-Israel correspondent Khaled Abu Toameh, 50,000 children have registered for child soldier camps run by Hamas. The “training camps” are named after the “sword of al-Quds battle”—the name Hamas gave to its recent war against Israel.

These summer camps provide a convenient pulpit from which Hamas can preach its radical Islamic ideology. Among the topics studied are the “themes” of “the liberation of Palestine” and the destruction of the State of Israel, adherence to the path of jihad (“the culture of the resistance”), and the cult of shaheeds (martyrs).

Not only does this vile practice use and abuse children, but it also answers those who during the recent conflict claimed that any person who was killed under the age of 18 in Gaza was automatically a civilian and an innocent. A report published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center found that at least one of the 66 children on the list of those who were killed during last month’s fighting, was a 17-year-old member of a terror group. He was sadly just another example of Hamas’ cynical use of child soldiers, who are recruited chiefly in their summer camps. Such recruitment of children as soldiers is a violation of international humanitarian law in Rule 136.

The images of little children learning to shoot guns dressed in army fatigues and jumping through hoops of fire and attack tunnels are a sad indictment on Palestinian society. Rather than create a better future for Palestinian children, this training dooms them—and Israeli children—to a cycle of violence fueled by hatred and incitement.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs puts it best: “Peace can never reign between Israel and the Palestinians as long as generation-after-generation of Palestinians are being fed a never-ending diet of anti-Israel incitement.”

There is a direct correlation between education, violence and terrorism. Whether in Palestinian Authority or Hamas schools, and sadly, even in schools run by the United Nations Refugee and Welfare Agency (UNRWA), the State of Israel is portrayed as an enemy that has to be destroyed. These “lessons” often descend into open anti-Semitism.

Rather than criticizing Israel for defending itself from terrorism, the Biden administration would be more effective in promoting peace if it were to reverse its decision to start re-funding the Palestinian Authority (with no preconditions) and UNRWA, whose goal is to prolong the conflict.

I hope you will point out to friends, family, colleagues and your elected representatives that this conflict will not end when negotiations are complete, and a document is signed. True peace cannot be achieved solely through signatures on a piece of paper. It must also exist in the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people. Just as Israel has educated its society for peace throughout its history, so too must the Palestinians embrace this process.

The U.S. and international community must understand that its obsessive focus on side issues like settlements, Jerusalem and demolition of terrorists’ houses allows and incentivizes violent Palestinian rejectionism. Only when our leaders and the media level their indignation at the issue of childhood incitement—toward ethnic hate and the cult of death—can we hope to see an end to the conflict.

I hope you’ll also take a minute, while you have this material front and center, to forward this message to friends, visit FLAME’s lively Facebook page and review the P.S. immediately below. It describes FLAME’s new hasbarah campaign—which exposes “The Ugly Truth About Hamas” and those who support the terrorist group.

Best regards,

Jim Sinkinson
President, Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME)