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Why Palestinian Incitement Matters So Much
By
Jonathan Rosenblum
How the West Bank and Gaza Arabs are succeeding
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Ever wonder where the report featured that Israeli soldiers kidnap and kill
Palestinians in order to harvest their vital organs for transplants
originated. Palestinian Media Watch provides the answer. It was lifted in
toto from the December 24, 2001 edition of Al Hayat Al Jadida, the
official Palestinian Authority newspaper.
Daniel Bostrum, the intrepid reporter for Sweden's largest circulation paper
Aftonblandet who plagiarized this fabrication, has said of his
handiwork, "Whether it's true or not, I have no idea. I have no clue." Given
his indifference to truth of his journalistic offerings, what further
"scoops" can we anticipate from Bostrum? Again, Palestinian Media Watch
provides the answer.
Here are just some of the charges one could have read in the official
Palestinian press or heard from leading Palestinian Authority officials in
recent years. Israel will pay 4,500 shekels to any Palestinian who can prove
he is a drug addict. Israel produced and distributed to Palestinians two
hundred tons of drug-laced bubble-gum designed to destroy the genetic
systems of Palestinian youth. It also distributes carcinogenic food and
fruits for Palestinian consumption and children's games that beam
radioactive x-rays. And don't forget the HIV-infected Jewish prostitutes
whom Israel has loosed among Palestinian youth. Or Suha Arafat's accusation
to Hilary Clinton that Israel poisons Palestinian wells.
So Bostrum and Aftonbladet have a potentially endless stream
of sensational stories ahead of them. But the point is not to predict
Bostrum's journalistic future. It is far more serious.
As the above accusations make clear, demonization of Israel is alive and
well in the Palestinian Authority. In every agreement since the onset of
Oslo, the Palestinians have solemnly pledged to end the incitement against
Jews and Israel in the Palestinian media and to purge it from Palestinian
textbooks. And each such undertaking has been promptly ignored.
 THE FAILURE TO CURB INCITEMENT has been so constant, so long-standing that it barely elicits a yawn today. But that apathy reflects a profound misunderstanding of the significance of that incitement. Shimon Peres once remarked, "I don't care what the Palestinians say, only what's written in the agreements." But what the Palestinians say to one another, and particularly what they teach their children, is far more important that what's written in peace agreements. Incitement and demonization are not just one more treaty violation. They reflect the failure of the Palestinians since the beginning of Oslo to create a constituency for peace with Israel, to educate the Palestinian population to the idea of living side-by-side with a Jewish state. Such an education would have included Palestinian leaders telling their people that they too would have to make painful concessions for peace, that all the so-called refugees and their descendants will not return to Israel, that the clock cannot be turned back entirely to 1947 or even 1966. That has never happened. Even worse, there has been no education to accept the existence of Israel in any borders or to renounce once and for all the dream of throwing all the Jews into the sea. The Palestinian Authority has gone out of its way to make heroes of the most vicious terrorists - not exactly the way to encourage thoughts of reconciliation and peace. Mahmoud Abbas sent his warmest congratulations to child-murderer Samir Kuntar, upon his release from an Israeli jail, and commissioned festive celebrations in honor of Dalal Mughrabi, the mastermind of the 1973 Coastal Road Massacre in which 37 Israelis were murdered. At the first Fatah Conference in two decades last month, the young and old guard competed as to who could be more intransigent with regard to peace negotiations with Israel, as described by the Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh. The resolutions passed included demands that Israel accept the "right of return" for all 1948 refugees and their descendants and hand over to the Palestinians all Jewish neighborhoods built in Jerusalem since 1967. Other resolutions passed by the conference accused Israel of having murdered Yasir Arafat, urged exploration of a strategic alliance with Iran, and called for the upgrading of the status of the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade, the Fatah militia most involved in anti-Israel terror. For good measure, Muhammad al-Ghuneim, an extreme hardliner, who opposed the Oslo Accords, was the top vote-getter for the Fatah Central Committee and is now Abbas's heir apparent.
The effect of decades of incitement to destroy Israel is fully reflected in
Palestinian polls. A June 5-7 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and
Survey Research, found that three-quarters of Palestinians reject any
possibility of reconciliation with Israel in this generation, even if a
final peace agreement were signed and an independent Palestinian state
created.
YET LARRY DERFNER ("The Mother of All Missed Opportunities," The Jerusalem Post, September 10) professes to find in the decreasing rates of terrorism from the West Bank and the round-up of thousands of Hamas activists, indications of a new peaceful intent among West Bank Palestinians. But the round-up Hamas activists reflects only Fatah's desire to secure its control of the West Bank, not a new attitude towards Israel. And the main reason for the reduced terrorism from the West Bank remains the daily and persistent IDF operations and clampdowns on suspected terrorists.To the extent that reduced terrorist attempts are a function of Palestinian Authority efforts, they result from the determination not to provide Prime Minister Netanyahu with ammunition to fend off pressure from U.S. President Obama. In a recent article for the Hudson Institute, Abu-Toameh argues that no matter how much the Palestinian economy improves, it "won't change Palestinians' negative attitude towards Israel, especially not when anti-Israel incitement and fiery rhetoric continue." The conflict, he writes, is "political, national and religious" in nature, and its resolution depends on "accepting Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people." Such acceptance cannot take place without creation of a Palestinian peace curriculum to replace the current incitement and demonization. That is why an end to incitement is not another meaningless and unenforceable promise to be included in a final peace agreement, but rather a necessary pre-condition for peace, without which all negotiations about boundaries and the like, are besides the point. Interested in a private Judaic studies instructor — for free? Let us know by clicking here. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes inspiring articles. Sign up for our daily update. It's free. Just click here.
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JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is founder of Jewish Media Resources and a widely-read columnist for the Jerusalem Post's domestic and international editions and for the Hebrew daily Maariv. He is also a respected commentator on Israeli politics, society, culture and the Israeli legal system, who speaks frequently on these topics in the United States, Europe, and Israel. His articles appear regularly in numerous Jewish periodicals in the United States and Israel. Rosenblum is the author of seven biographies of major modern Jewish figures. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Yale Law School. Rosenblum lives in Jerusalem with his wife and eight children.
© 2009, Jonathan Rosenblum | ||||||||||||
