By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
Dec 02, 2004
Contrary to media reports, PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas did not order the Palestinian Broadcasting Authority to halt incitement against Israel’s Jews, senior “Palestinian” officials insisted Wednesday.
The independent Israeli watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch concurred, noting that while the form of incitement had been altered somewhat in recent days, the PA-controlled media continued to push hatred for Israel’s Jews.
On November 18, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sought to test the intentions of the post-Arafat PA leadership by demanding the “Palestinians” finally abide by their signed commitment to halt incitement and foster an atmosphere of peaceful coexistence.
That call was publicly rejected by the “Palestinians.”
PA won’t end incitement
Recent reports “published by certain Arab and foreign media” that Abbas had visited broadcasting heads in Samaria and Gaza and ordered a halt to anti-Israel incitement “are completely untrue,” PA Information Ministry official Ahmed Sobh told a local Ramallah radio station Wednesday.
"The aim of such wrong news is to give the impression to the public in the Arab world that the Palestinian Authority heeds the instructions of Israel instead of achieving the aspirations and ambitions of the Palestinian people," Sobh was quoted as saying by the Washington Times .
Israel Radio reported Wednesday morning that the head of the Palestinian Broadcasting Authority had denied receiving any instructions from the PA leadership to tone down incitement against Israel’s Jews.
Reports of the PLO’s sudden willingness to fulfill its “Oslo” peace obligations originated with United Press International, which quoted unnamed “Palestinian” sources.
‘Ideological’ incitement
Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch, told CNS News that while direct incitement to perpetrate acts of violence against Israelis had stopped recent days, the virulent Jew-hatred so prominent in Arab media remained.
Marcus likened the new level and form of incitement to that which was present in the PA media from 1996 to 2000, the same incitement that led to the current “Palestinian” terrorist war.
As an example of this “ideological” incitement, Marcus pointed to a feature aired on PA-controlled television Sunday that drove home the idea that the Jews had stolen the fictitious nation of “Palestine” from the Arabs.
“Refugees” echoes the Arab claim that there are some six million “Palestinians” living in exile, and that they have the “right” to flood Israel, effectively annihilating the Jewish state through demographics.
The film depicts “Palestine” as stretching from Israel’s border with Lebanon to the Red Sea resort town of Eilat.
"There is no escaping the fact that one day we shall return,” the film concludes.
A week earlier, PA television featured a history program in which a so-called “expert” lectured on how the area was a “prophetic land” that was the rightful inheritance of the “Palestinians.”
"The Jews remind us of parasitic worms that live in the sea, eat a snail and afterwards move to live in its shell. No one else is allowed to live in the shell,” the historian said.
Marcus notes that in these and numerous other examples, "There is no message of co-existence with Israel.”
A decade-old violation
The issue of official “Palestinian” incitement returned to the forefront last month when Sharon demanded the PA finally honor its decade-old peace commitments.
“The venomous propaganda in the Palestinian media and education system are the root and foundation of the growing phenomenon of suicide terrorism,” the prime minister charged.
“Palestinian education and propaganda are more dangerous to Israel than Palestinian weapons,” Sharon said.
He indicated Israel would not allow full implementation of the first phase of the Road Map until the PA had fulfilled these crucial obligations.
Failed test
The PA, however, failed the first post-Arafat test of its intentions by predictably rejecting Sharon’s call.
The Israelis “should begin by abandoning their policy of setting conditions and stop their incitement against us," PA cabinet minister Saeb Erekat told Reuters Friday, forgetting that reforming the anti-Israel education system is a long-unfulfilled obligation rather than a precondition to talks.
New PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas claimed that while “we have issues of this kind,” the Israelis “have them to a greater extent.”
His comment ignored the fact that since 1993, Israeli schools have focused heavily on training young Jews to view the Palestinian Arabs as their peace partners, and pushing the “right” of these Arabs to form their own state.
Abbas said only after Israel agreed to return to the negotiating table would he consider talking about implementing the PA’s decade-old promises.