NEW YORK- Another leading commentator is pointing out that the main obstacle to Middle East peace was not just Yasir Arafat, but rather the Palestinian Arabs’ entire culture of hatred and violence.
Charles Krauthammer, in his syndicated column (Washington Post, Nov. 15, 2004), writes: “Deploying every instrument of propaganda — television, radio, newspapers and, most importantly, schools and summer camps for children — [Arafat’s] Palestinian Authority fed his people a diet of such virulent anti-Semitism and denial of the Jewish connection with the land that no successor will even be in position to contemplate breaking Arafat’s rejectionist precedent … Arafat’s legacy — the romanticization of violence, the rejection of Israel, the indoctrination of a new generation in intolerance and hatred — will require a long time to undo. It will require years, perhaps even generations.”
In recent days, other leading commentators have made the same point:
* Yossi Klein Halevi, in The New Republic (Nov.15, 2004), writes: “The problem is hardly Arafat alone. The Oslo process failed because Palestinian society denies the legitimacy of a Jewish state in any borders. Israel’s Oslo architects believed legitimacy would result from peace; now, Israelis realize that legitimacy is a precondition for peace. And so one more Israeli demand for resuming negotiations will be ending anti-Jewish incitement in Palestinian schools and media.”
* Caroline Glick, deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post, writes (Nov. 9, 2004): “Palestinian society has been indoctrinated to jihad in a manner unmatched throughout the Arab world … Children have been brainwashed to believe their life goal should be to die carrying out acts of genocidal mass murder of Jews. Women have been inculcated with the inhuman belief that their wombs are bomb factories, rather than the sources of life. Through the Palestinian media, school system, religious institutions, sports teams and iconographers, Palestinians over the past decade have been brought to believe their sole purpose as a people is to liquidate the Jewish people. Suicide bombings in Israel are greeted with carnival-like
celebrations in the West Bank and Gaza. There is no remorse, no regret, no shame and no guilt of the wanton brutality and barbarity of suicide bombings.”
* Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation writes: “Arafat created a brainwashing machine on a scale unseen since Joseph Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry of the Third Reich. Children as young as 2 are paraded wearing suicide belts. Youth camps for terrorists proliferate. The school system has turned into a jihad factory, and the U.S.-sponsored Palestinian version of ‘Sesame Street’ preaches murder of Jews and Israelis.” (Washington Times, Nov.10, 2004)
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) notes that other prominent voices have made the same point in recent years:
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, leader of the Union for Reform Judaism, who said in a speech in Cleveland on June 1, 2001: “We did not pay nearly enough attention to the culture of hatred created and nourished by Palestinian leaders … Palestinian children, of course, are not born hating Jews. Hatred is a powerful sentiment that must be acquired — from parents, from education, from government authorities. The hatred of so many Palestinians for Jews results from a conscious process of demonizing the ‘Zionist enemy.’ There is a direct line between Palestinian terror and the growing use of anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi language in the Palestinian media.”
Elie Wiesel has said that “educational textbooks used in Palestinian schools are teaching a new generation to hate Israel and the Jews … They’re full of hatred for the Jews.” (Boston Jewish Advocate, Nov.10-16, 2000)
Gary Rosenblatt, editor of the New York Jewish Week, has written that the Palestinian Arabs’ willingness to engage in violence has been “fostered by a constant barrage, over a period of many years, of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric on Palestinian television and radio, in the newspapers, in school textbooks and in fiery sermons from the mosques. Contrary to signed agreements, the Palestinian Authority has done nothing to prepare its people for peace with Israel; on the contrary, it has encouraged a violent struggle and pledged a jihad to ‘liberate’ Jerusalem.” (Nov. 3, 2000)