PMW: The worst chapter in Palestinian schoolbooks
If you want to know why Palestinian children believe that killing Israelis is model behavior, all you have to do is look at a chapter in one of their schoolbooks.
PA schoolbooks have been criticized ever since Palestinian Media Watch wrote the first report on them in 1998, and the newest books in some respects are the worst ever. However, one chapter stands out in its overt promotion of terrorism. This chapter, appearing in the fifth-grade Arabic Language book published in 2017, serves as a window to understanding the PA leadership’s profoundly twisted values.
The chapter starts innocently by stressing the importance of heroes to national identity and national pride: “Heroes have an important position in every nation… the people – even if they are divided over many things – they all agree regarding the pride in their heroes…”
The schoolbook continues and teaches students that feeling pride is not enough. Society takes numerous active steps to honor its heroes: “[We] sing their praise, learn the history of their lives, name our children after them, and name streets, squares, and prominent cultural sites after them…”
In short, society assures that heroes are never forgotten. They might have lived in earlier times, but by naming streets and squares after them and singing their praise, these heroes remain in Palestinian consciousness.
The next message is most important: The children are taught that these heroes are not merely memories of the past they are the role models for the future: “Every one of us wishes to be like them.”
PMW: “Zionist Christians” do “not belong to Christianity” according to Palestinian Christian leader
A Palestinian Christian leader has demonized Evangelical Christians as being "pulpits in the service of the Zionist enterprise." In fact, the Head of the Sebastia Diocese of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem Archbishop Atallah Hanna stated that "Evangelical Christians" or "Zionist Christians" do "not belong to Christianity," and that they "have no connection to the values of Christianity":Yisrael Medad: A Jewish Polity
"Head of the Sebastia Diocese of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem Archbishop Atallah Hanna said that neither the Christian nor the church dictionary contain anything called 'Evangelical Christians' or 'Zionist Christians.' He added: 'The aforementioned do not belong to Christianity at all; they have no connection to the values of Christianity and to the evangelical principles that always prefer to identify with the deprived and ill-fated of the world. They are closer to Judaism and Zionism and have no connection to Christianity.'
Archbishop Hanna said: 'The Christian Evangelists are tantamount to pulpits in the service of the Zionist enterprise. They are enemies of the Christian values, and when they come to Palestine they do not visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity, but rather the colonies located on the stolen lands of our people as a sign of solidarity with the occupation.'" [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 24, 2018]
Palestinian Media Watch has reported on Hanna's activities in the past, among them visits to families of imprisoned terrorists and advocacy against "normalization" with Israel.
Who wrote:
1. Looking toward a land and a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of the earth may share the dignity of a national life which has a voice among the peoples of the East and the West
2. There is store of wisdom among us to found a new Jewish polity, grand, simple, just, like the old--a republic where there is equality of protection, an equality which shone like a star on the forehead of our ancient community, and gave it more than the brightness of Western freedom amid the despotisms of the East. Then our race shall have an organic centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and execute; the outraged Jew shall have a defense in the court of nations, as the outraged Englishmen of America. And the world will gain as Israel gains.
3. Let our wise and wealthy show themselves heroes. They have the memories of the East and West, and they have the full vision of a better...So will a new Judaea, poised between East and West--a covenant of reconciliation.
George Elliot in Daniel Deronda, 1876.
As if the British and the League of Nations didn't know what they were doing.