Palestinian TV Teaches Children to Become Martyrs
(November 2001)
The systematic use of the
media as a way to incite the Palestinian public
to violence was a phenomenon that may have
appeared likely to disappear following the terrorist strikes on the United States and the outpouring
of revulsion throughout the Western world
to such suicide terror attacks.
Yet, after Sept. 11 the Palestinian
Authority’s (PA) glorification and
promotion of “martyrdom” have continued
in the government-controlled media. Incredibly,
the campaign is primarily directed toward
Palestinian children.
A short film that has continued to be shown
on PA television nearly twice a day since
Sept. 11 provides a chilling example of how
the PA is encouraging its children to engage
in violent confrontation with Israelis and
seek death.
At the beginning of the clip, a young Palestinian
boy bids farewell to his father and his baby
brother, telling them that he has decided
to leave the family and seek “martyrdom.”
He then leaves the house and joins a group
of other young Palestinian boys on their way
to confront Israeli soldiers and attack them
with stones.
The scene changes to reveal the boy’s
friends delivering to his father a farewell
note written by the boy. In the background,
a vocalist sings the following lyrics: “Do
not be sad my dear and do not cry over my
parting—oh, my dear father, for my country—martyrdom.
I shall sacrifice myself,”according to
a translation done by Palestinian Media Watch,
an Israeli group that monitors the Palestinian
media.
As the father drops to his knees in grief
the boy is shown dropping to the ground himself,
slingshot in hand, after being shot by an
Israeli soldier. As the boy’s body slumps
to the ground repeatedly in slow motion, his
face serene, the vocalist sings, “I shall
sacrifice myself. With determination and desire
I long to approach. How sweet is the martyrdom
when I embrace you, my land”
The clip ends with a shot of the boy’s
mother crying, while the words sung in the
background urge her to “be joyous over
my blood and do not cry for me.”
As the campaign of violence against Israeli
civilians and soldiers continues, the Palestinian
leadership is not educating its children for
peace or encouraging them to look for ways
to coexist with Israelis. Instead, it is instructing
them to pursue violence as the preferred strategy
and death as an ideal.
Sources: Near
East Report, (November 19, 2001) |