Palestinian leaders have created a culture of death that is motivating the latest violent terrorism.
By Tzipi Hotovely, WALL STREET JOURNAL Oct. 18, 2015
The latest surge of Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis has come in the immediate wake of explicit calls by the Palestinian leadership to “spill blood.” This well-orchestrated campaign of violence follows many years in which Palestinian children have been taught to idolize the murder of Jews as a sacred value and to regard their own death in this “jihad” as the pinnacle of their aspirations.
Such violence has deep roots. It goes back to the rampages at the behest of Haj Amin al-Husseini, a Muslim activist and at one point grand mufti of Jerusalem, in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. It continued with the fedayeenPalestinian militants in the 1950s and ’60s, and evolved into the terrorism of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Fatah under Yasser Arafat and now Mahmoud Abbas. Anyone who claims that Palestinian terror against Jews dates only to 1967, or is a response to Israeli settlements, should become more informed of the conflict’s history.
Yet the apathy shown by the international community to the death-culture fostered by Palestinian elites, and the unbalanced manner in which subsequent violence is often treated by the international media—as if there is any kind of symmetry between terrorists and their victims—is doing long-term, and possibly irrevocable, harm to generations of Palestinians.
A few recent examples underscore the depth of the problem.
Mr. Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, said the following on Palestinian television on Sept. 16: “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah. With the help of Allah, every martyr will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward.”
Two weeks later, on Oct. 1, Palestinian terrorists murdered an Israeli couple, Eitam and Naama Henkin, in cold blood in front of their four children, who ranged from 9 years old to 4 months.
Days later, with the Henkin children still in mourning, PLO official Mahmoud Ismail went on official Palestinian television, PBC, and proclaimed their parents’ murder to be a fulfillment of Palestinian “national duty.” He was one of several Palestinian officials who condoned the murder.
Such statements strike a resonant chord among generations of Palestinian children who have been taught that Jews are the descendants of “barbaric monkeys” and “wretched pigs” (a phrase from a poem repeatedly recited on PBC television, to the applause of children.) They have been taught that “armed conflict” (a common Palestinian euphemism for the murder of Jews) against “the so-called State of Israel” is both a religious duty and an act purportedly legitimized by the United Nations—a falsehood repeated in a number of 12th-grade Palestinian textbooks.
The Palestinian Authority also pays handsome stipends to terrorists and their families, which serve as a powerful incentive to carry out acts of terror.
Is it surprising, then, that Mr. Abbas’s explicit call for “blood on its way to Allah” has resulted in a surge of stabbings and other attacks against Israelis? Is it any wonder that viewers of official television recently were treated to the sight of a Palestinian boy, dressed up in battle fatigues, telling a smiling talk-show host of his wish to become an engineer “so that I can build bombs to blow up all the Jews.”
The unending stream of blood-drenched caricatures and video clips that circulate virally through Palestinian social media is a telling indication of how profoundly the worship of violence is entrenched in Palestinian society. So are the many schools, city squares and sports tournaments named for arch-terrorists.
The cultivation of this culture of death is having devastating effects. As Palestinian terror touches more Jewish families, Israelis, especially of the younger generation, are increasingly resigning themselves to the fact that Palestinian society is guided by a dramatically different set of values.
Israeli society and Jewish tradition sanctify life. Palestinian society glorifies death. Israeli children grow up on songs of peace and the biblical vision of “nation shall not lift up sword against nation.” Palestinian children are taught to hate.
Yet there is no international outcry. No indignation at the exploitation of Palestinian children from all the nongovernmental organizations and U.N. agencies that profess to monitor human-rights abuses.
This is tragic because the international community could make a practical difference. About a third of the Palestinian Authority’s budget is financed by foreign aid. This money is intended to develop Palestinian infrastructure and foster economic growth, but it is being misused by the Palestinian Authority to promote the murder of Jews and to sow destruction within Israel. The international community can wield its influence toward a cessation of incitement.
Turning a blind eye to the enormous harm that the Palestinian leadership is doing to its own people—by raising successive generations of children on blind hatred of the Jews and Israel—is dooming these children to a bleak future. This ought to be a compelling reason for the international community to seriously rethink the strange tolerance it exhibits toward the Palestinian death-culture.
Changing this culture of death is no less important for the Palestinians than for Israel.
Ms. Hotovley is deputy foreign minister of Israel.
SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:
BB understands that fools accept rhetoric in place of action.
@ bernard ross:
May I introduce the latest informal information?
He will allow the Jordanian Wakft to install and control the cameras in a short while…
Remember him going after Zoabi? It is all forgotten.
jews are stabbed in terror waves and BB installs TV cameras
😛 😛 😛
I am fatigued from all this talk about them and their children. I dont care about them or their children, just like they dont care about me and mine… I have never heard of a people other than stockhom syndrome jews talk so much about their enemies children. Jewish energy is wasted discussing their interests….. jewish energy which should be focused on removing their threat. when the world brings up the pals problems the Jews should move the discussion to the Jews problems to show that the Jews are only interested in the pals to the extent they endanger jews.
It appears to me that the more rotten things happen to them and their children the less energy they have to kill jews.
in all things BB takes no action other than talk….
In all major things he seeks to rely on the action of others…
Iran, Hamas, Hezbullah, terror,muslim jew abuse,settlement…
his reign consists of lots of talk with no plan B’s when it inevitably fails…. an MO unworthy of a PM
an MO whose wings are based on narratives of others tying his hands…..
and therefore, whenever he is under pressure to act…. someone conveniently marterializes to appear to tie his hands.
BB announces he is “considering” deportations and immediately obama announces they are against it….. therefore all of Israel will nod their heads and say BB’s hands were tied. but in reality such things are done privately and under the table diplomatically whereas public announcements are to influence or deceive the public. In all such cases, including Iran, BB always emerges as the picture of a fighting PM giving all he has got to rhetorical struggling against rhetorical enemies. It appears to work well for BB….. as the do nothing PM has become the right wing hero.
oops, my bad, he actually does do some things like enact laws to incarcerate jews when arabs burn themselves, or makes building announcements which never materialize, or E1 approvals that get shelved, or levy report commissioning that collects dust,………….LOL, see where this is going?????
Dont worry ttzipi, BB is quick to the rescue:
-he enacts laws to incarate jews when arabs burn other arabs,
-he is assiduously begging the foreigners for a return to the status quo whereby muslims attacked and abuse Jews during BB’s 2 terms as PM
-but most importantly he has moved “forward” from making declarations of future action which never materializes to announcements that he is…….”considering”……
heaven forbid he should actually deport anti semites from Israel and do something to protect jews….. like taking the battle to the anti semites….
I am sure the dead stabbed and burned jews will be happy that he is still “considering”…..
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
https://youtu.be/QrrJxX3CBnc?list=PLTEmqnHCtV7R_O_r3_EOOIBb4Wm5ZzDJa
I never would have thought we are so smart!
Them leaders… seem to be now a bit aware of has been going on in earnest since Rabin and Peres imported the muslim beasts with Arafat…
Really amazing slight awakening. Kol Hakavod…. WHAT!!!
Only few muslims may be trusted… at a distance…