Monitoring Palestinian incitement is not enough

[shira]

Monitoring Palestinian incitement is not enough
By FERN OPPENHEIM
11/04/2010 01:58

We need to address the issue of the indoctrination of children who are taught to hate from a very young age.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently announced that Israel will begin to monitor incitement in the Palestinian Authority, and appointed Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser as government coordinator of this program. According to a recent Haaretz article, reports on incitement will be issued periodically and an “incitement index” will be produced by monitoring broadcasts in the official PA media, statements and actions by senior PA officials, and textbooks. While this is welcome news, and a crucial step forward in creating a more conducive climate for peace, it falls short in terms of adequately communicating the full scope and severity of the problem.

Israeli government officials historically have spoken about the culture of hatred in the PA solely in terms of incitement. In addition to incitement, there is a related and arguably even more egregious phenomenon – indoctrination – which should be monitored, reported on and publicized in its own right. To conflate the two and report only on “incitement” is to unnecessarily blur the true nature of what has been taking place in Palestinian society.

Incitement is defined as “stirring to action, attempting to persuade.” A good example of incitement in the PA would be a fiery speech against Israel by a politician or an imam. Indoctrination, on the other hand, is defined as “instruction in the rudiments of a belief system” or, more simply put, brainwashing. An example of indoctrination would be a Palestinian TV program that teaches young children that all of Israel is Palestinian territory, and that suicide missions are the highest form of martyrdom.

There are critical distinctions between the two which highlight the need to address them separately:

more...
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=172803

[shira]

1. article cont'd...

1. Who they target – adults vs. children

When an Imam or politician preaches hate to an adult audience, those assembled generally have the ability to assess the speech and make their own judgments regarding its veracity. Conversely, when children’s TV shows, textbooks, etc. teach young Palestinians that Israelis have no historical ties to the land, that Jews are evil, that terrorism is justified, etc., the children targeted are being brainwashed to believe what they are being taught. Unlike adults, they are not yet able to assess the quality of information being fed to them. They become the unwitting vessels of the poison being served. In this regard, indoctrination is an educational form of child abuse that is like statutory rape of the mind. It is a human-rights violation against which children’s rights activists should be up in arms.

2. The shelf life of the message – temporary vs. forever

Messages of incitement to adults can be turned on and off like a spigot, depending on the needs of the Palestinian governing body. Once youngsters are indoctrinated, however, they will likely believe the vile things they were taught for the rest of their lives, and act on them. Israel can make all the concessions requested of her tomorrow, yet an entire generation of Palestinians will still harbor the hatred they were spoon-fed to their dying days. Indoctrination is therefore a much greater threat than incitement to the long-term prospects for peace.

As a child of a Holocaust survivor, I have often questioned how so many people could be complicit in the murder of the six million. While there are no simple answers, it is clear that the groundwork for turning a normal society into murderers has to be carefully laid. All forms of propaganda have to be employed to dehumanize the victims and position them as threats to the society.

It is alarming to witness this type of groundwork being laid in the Palestinian territories over the past several years by official bodies and media outlets. When innocent Palestinian children watch their beloved Sesame Street-like TV characters brutally murdered by IDF soldiers, or spend time in summer camps and public squares named after suicide bombers, they are being carefully prepared to harbor lasting enmity and emulate perpetrators of terror.


This indoctrination is the start of a process that results in a culture of blind hatred. It has been allowed to flourish for far too long. Israeli government officials, including those involved in Netanyahu’s new program, must address the brainwashing of Palestinian children as a discrete and pressing issue in its own right.

True peace depends on it.

[IndianaGreen]

2. The root cause of hatred is Israel's Occupation and the apartheid wall

Until Israel's despicable role is addressed, it is pointless to talk about the collateral issues, including Saudi Arabia's financing of a global network of religious schools that train the next generation of jihadists.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. The hate goes back generations and is strongly rooted in Islamic history

What you call pointless is one of the seminal causes

[IndianaGreen]

11. Muslims and Jews lived side by side in peace until the Christians showed their ugly faces

Historical grievances are irrelevant to the current situation!

[Name removed]

13. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dick Dastardly]

14. This is not only false but it is also hateful bigotry.

[Violet_Crumble]

18. What was bigoted about what Indy said?

Ugly faces? I'm at a loss here...

[aranthus]

31. As long as they lived under Muslim rule.

The sin of Israel is that it demands Jewish sovereignty.

[Violet_Crumble]

17. That's complete and utter bullshit...

Apart from the obvious fact that hate isn't some one-sided thing, only Islamophobic websites would trot out the line that Islamic history is the cause of hate. If that's the case, how come there's Christians and Jews who hate? It's not some Muslim thing, y'know...

[subsuelo]

33. reading this causes one to forget which site is being visited

[Jefferson23]

3. Say what?

'50% against equal rights for Arabs'
By JPOST.COM STAFF
11/03/2010 10:29


Poll also shows 56% of Jewish Israeli schoolchildren say no to Arab Israeli MKs.

Fifty percent of Jewish Israeli high-schoolers believe that Arab Israelis should not be granted the same rights as their Jewish counterparts, according to a new Ma’agar Mohot poll of 536 15-to-18-year-olds.

Furthermore, Arabs should be prevented from running for Knesset, 56 percent of the Jewish children said.

Fifty percent of the Jewish youngsters who defined themselves as religious said the “Death to Arabs” slogan was legitimate.

Moreover, 70% of Arab Israeli youngsters polled defined themselves as “Palestinian patriots,” and 20% don’t feel a part of the country.

remainder: http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=170735

[kayecy]

4. Does anyone know what Israeli kids are tought about the borders of Israel?........n/t

[IndianaGreen]

5. They all believe in the Big Pumpkin in the sky

As do those among us that believe in American Exceptionalism.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. The vast majorty of Israeli's are strongly secular

[IndianaGreen]

10. Their government and their Knesset are infested with Big Pumpkin in the Sky fanatics

Alas, Hamas and Hizbollah are also infested with Big Pumpkin in the Sky fanatics.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

12. So some how a nation of secularists is electing a theocratic governement

That would lead most to conclude that you are a big pumpkin in the sky bubba

[cali]

8. er, Israel children are taught to hate too and furthermore

though I in no way condone it from either side, the Palestinian children also learn to hate by being oppressed.

[shira]

9. The difference is one is state sanctioned and institutionalized, making peace nearly impossible

Hate exists in the USA and other western nations too but the hate isn't state-sanctioned. In fact, western nations (like Israel) attempt in varying degrees to promote tolerance and peace.

[LeftishBrit]

34. SOME Western governments attempt to promote tolerance and peace..

Some don't. The Bush government promoted quite the reverse. Netanyahu and Lieberman certainly don't attempt to promote tolerance and peace.

The Blair government promoted quite the reverse of peace too, and Blair is known for having said that the British 'need to be not only peacekeepers but warfighters'.

Obama and Brown are much better in this respect than Bush and Blair, but even they are fighting wars currently.

In the good old days of the Cold War, the USA and Soviet Union both inculcated lots of hate of the other side -sometimes deliberately, sometimes casually.

BTW, what do you mean by 'Western' nations here, as Israel is certainly not a Western country geographically (at least no more than Palestine), and people of Western origin are a large minority, not a majority, of its population?

In any case, 'state-sponsored hate in the media' usually occurs when government has too much control of the media, which is a bad thing and incompatible with democracy (and is uncommon but not unknown in the West - cf Berlusconi). We have plenty of hate-media in the UK; it is not run by the government, but it's still nasty and both feeds on and causes a lot of racism and bigotry. At least, we do have alternative media available, unlike countries where it's all under government control - which is very crucial of course.

[azurnoir]

15. A simply amazing and informative article

we start with a stunning visual of Farfur the character from the TV show Tomorrow's Pioneers one wonders though why this particular visual was used in an article concerning the PA though as most if not all sources on this show seem to credit it to Hamas rather than the PA

Tomorrow's Pioneers also The Pioneers of Tomorrow) is a children's program, broadcast since April 13, 2007 on the official Palestinian Hamas television station, Al-Aqsa TV The show features young host Saraa Barhoum and her co-host, a large costumed animal as they perform skits (or "scenes") and discuss life in Palestine in a seminar fashion with call-ins from children (typically of age 9-13 with some as young as 3).<2><3> While ostensibly a show about children's education presented in a format similar to such common western shows as Sesame Street or Barney & Friends, Tomorrow's Pioneers additionally contains Hamas-inspired antisemitism, Islamic extremism, anti-Americanism, and other anti-Western themes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_Pioneers

now we deftly go on to charges that alternately the PA and Palestinians in general routinely incite hatred against Israel exactly what this entails is somewhat amorphous as is the premise of the article which seems to be that something more than monitoring must be done what that is however is left to the imagination

what one may ask is exactly the point of all this?

lets take a look at the author Fern Oppenheim who a footnote tells us is

The writer is president of Applied Marketing Innovations, cofounder of the Brand Israel Group, and strategic communications consultant for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

the organization that is trying to "rebrand" Israel more about them from the Forward

http://www.forward.com/articles/2070/

One must wonder however if the enterprise of rebranding Israel is not going so well so rebranding the PA is being tried instead

[Violet_Crumble]

16. Emulating the perpetrators of terror

The latest candidate for the Chutzpah of the Month award: Fern Oppenheim, in the Jerusalem Post, obviously an American Jew living in the States, cannot see the ironies when she writes: "When innocent Palestinian children watch their beloved Sesame Street-like TV characters brutally murdered by IDF soldiers , or spend time in summer camps and public squares named after suicide bombers, they are being carefully prepared to harbor lasting enmity and emulate perpetrators of terror."

Palestinian children do not have to watch TV to see their parents, relatives and friends "brutally murdered by IDF soldiers" and as for honoring terrorists, what is naming a town square compared to Israelis electing not one, but two men who proudly proclaimed themselves to be terrorists as their prime minister--the Irgun's Menachem Begin and the Stern Gang's Yitzhak Shamir, both of whom who were named as terrorists by the British government with rewards promised for their capture? That's leaving out Ariel Sharon, the butcher of Lebanon and before that Gaza who had more deaths of innocents on his hands than either Begin or Shamir and over whom the Israelis swooned, and elected him, as well.

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/04/emulating-the-perpetrators-of-terror.html

[ProgressiveMuslim]

19. Is this the best you can do Shira, to counter the array of articles about Israel's unconscionable

behavior?

Pretty pathetic!

[shira]

20. What's sad is how the usual suspects here whitewash state-sanctioned hate indoctrination

Do you have any expectations of the PA or Hamas?

What kind of 'peace' are you looking forward to, in which the PLO and Hamas continue with this kind of indoctrination?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

21. All Palestinians kids need to do to learn to hate Israel is open their front door.

No further indoctrination required.

Watching their uncles jailed, their fathers beaten, their brothers humiliated, having their land stolen, their dreams dashed, being humiliated themselves at checkpoints, having dogs sicced on them... that's really all that's required.

The fact that the vast majority of Palestinians don't feel enraged hatred toward each and every Israeli, and for their Western supporters and apologists is quite miraculous, and speaks to their deep humanity.

[shira]

22. Do you have a problem with the PLO and Hamas' state-sanctioned hate indoctrination?

[azurnoir]

23. The article you posted mentions neither the PLO or Hamas

only the PA even though the visual provided is quite well known to be a product of Hamas do you have a problem with such sloppy "journalism" that is designed to give a false impression you see the author does not seem able to give a single example of PA sponsored hate media but does allude to some sort of censorship of any antiIsrael media in OPT being somehow desirable as I said earlier she is one those charged with the largely unsuccessful mission of rebranding" Israel, so it seems has been reduced to attempting to brand the PA

[shira]

26. So what? Would you like PLO or Hamas hate indoctrination provided here?

[azurnoir]

27. Changing the subject to suit once again Shira?

neither Hamas or the PLO have a state so to speak so state sponsored is really the strawman here

[shira]

28. oh sorry....would you like government sanctioned PLO and Hamas hate indoctrination provided for you?

I never mentioned "state" in my last post.

Neither did I "edit" it. :eyes:

[azurnoir]

29. what clever parsing if the PLO and Hams are governments

just what are they governing?

[shira]

30. LOL. (nt)

:eyes:

[azurnoir]

32. Hmmm can't answer ? n/t

[ProgressiveMuslim]

24. There is no state. How can there be state-sactioned anything?

Now conversely, Israel has recently passed a military order that amounts to state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing. What's your position on that?

I do find your whirling dervish-like attempt to divert attention from Israel's daily crimes very entertaining though.

[shira]

25. OK, do you have a problem with Hamas and the PLO's government sponsored hate indoctrination?

I'll answer anything you wish so long as you answer me.

Deal?

[Tripmann]

35. All a palestinian child needs to do to hate israelis

is for the israelis to continue to lay siege, bombard, disallow rebuilding and attack fishing boats. I don't see any mention in that one sided OP-ED of any of those things, unsurprisingly enough.

Oh, and shira, before you ask, I don't condone palestinian children being thought to hate any more than I condone palestinian children being exposed to OCL.