A Senate appropriations committee watched excerpts from Palestinian television illustrating the Palestinian Authority’s indoctrination and grooming of children to become suicide bombers, prompting calls for a cessation of aid unless the propaganda stops.
 Palestinian TV encourages youth to become “martyrs” |
Sen. Hillary Clinton said the Palestinian Authority is engaged in “horrific abuse of children,” after watching videos provided by Itamar Marcus of Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch.
A video screened by the senators shows ordinary children on state-run Palestinian television expressing support of terrorism and their desire to become “martyrs.”
“How can you think about building a better future, no matter what your political views, if you indoctrinate your children to a culture of death?” Clinton told reporters after the hearing Thursday, according to the Jerusalem Post. “We should all agree that children should not be indoctrinated into hatred and violence and then indoctrinated into killing themselves.”
The hearings, held by the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, also looked at Palestinian education materials, including textbooks, and considered their effect on the peace process. The committee wants to know whether financial support to the Palestinians was directly or indirectly funding the Palestinian Authority’s indoctrination.
 Sen. Hillary Clinton, D.-N.Y. |
Clinton is not a member of the committee but asked to participate after meeting with Marcus and looking over his documentation.
Along with interviews with children, other excerpts from Palestinian television show mothers expressing pride after their children blew themselves up.
“That is just beyond the pale,” Clinton said, according to the Jerusalem Post.
“It is clear that the Palestinian Authority, as we see on PATV, is complicit” in terrorist attacks, she said. “This is not Hamas [running the television station]. This is the Palestinian Authority.”
During the hearing, Clinton asked the Palestinian representative in Washington, Hassan Abdel Rahman, whether the PA plans to cease such broadcasts.
“He evaded my question,” Clinton said.
Rahman, according to the senator, argued the broadcasts were mistranslated and misinterpreted.
“I kept pressing him on it, and I will continue to do so,” she said.
Sen. Arlen Spector, chairman of the subcommittee, said he will send a transcript of the hearing to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia with a question, ‘Will you act to stop Palestinian television from carrying these messages?'”
“These videos are absolutely shocking,” Specter said in a statement. “They should be seen by the people of the United States.”
“I think what we need is something to do hand-to-hand combat with these indoctrination videos,” said Specter. “This education process is a threat to future generations.”
 Preacher on Palestinian TV teaches “martyrdom” |
Clinton said she has written to President Bush, urging him to demand an end to official Palestinian anti-Semitism and the promotion of terrorism as a pre-condition to resuming Middle East peace talks, according to the Jerusalem paper.
The hearing’s goal, the senator emphasized was to raise awareness on Capitol Hill.
“We were focused not so much on the legalistic aspects of this as on the moral and ethical issue of how any society can condone this kind of behavior and permit young children to be interviewed on television about their desire to die,” she said.
Nothing new
As WorldNetDaily has reported, the PA’s efforts to brainwash Palestinian children into becoming willing “martyrs” to destroy the Jews is not new.
A Palestinian psychologist claims more than half of Palestinian children aged 6 to 11 dream of becoming suicide bombers. Dr. Shafiq Massalha conducted a study that has led him to conclude that “in about 10 years, a very murderous generation will come of age, full of hatred and ready to die in suicide missions.”
The Palestinian Education Ministry sponsored a letter-writing contest that rewarded children for embracing violence. The winner, a seventh grader, wrote “My heart has turned into a sad block of pain. One day I will buy a weapon and I will blow away the fetters. I will propel my living-dead body into your arms, my father, and you will gather me into your hands.”
Marcus noted in May 2001, Mohammed al-Dura, the 12-year-old Palestinian youth whose shooting death in Sept. 2000 made him the poster boy of the “intifada,” was – courtesy of Palestinian television – speaking to an ever-angrier generation of Arab youths from beyond the grave, beckoning to them from paradise to become terrorists and suicide bombers.
In November 2000, the Mufti of Jerusalem, the city’s highest Muslim religious authority, called for the complete “liberation” by Palestinians not only of Jerusalem, but of all of Israel, and stressing “sacrifice” and “martyrdom” of Palestinian children prove that “the new generation will carry on the mission with determination.”
WorldNetDaily also reported on a 1998 documentary showing a “Sesame Street”-like children’s program called the “Children’s Club” – complete with puppet shows, songs, Mickey Mouse and other characters – focused on inculcating intense hatred of Jews and a passion for engaging in and celebrating violence against them in a perpetual “jihad” until the day the Israeli flags come down from above “Palestinian land” and the Palestinian flag is raised.
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