"Deception: Betraying the Peace Process"

It's a new book by the director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), Itamar Marcus, and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, after an in-depth year long review of Palestinian Authority (PA)-approved cultural, educational and general media resources to determine how the PA responded to commitments put forth by the Quartet: to espouse nonviolence, to recognize the Jewish State of Israel, and to accept it as a partner for peace.

Sadly, predictably, in a recent Jerusalem Post article about the book's release, Marcus indicated the "overwhelming conclusion" was "a total abrogation" of commitment.

The book details hundreds of examples that promote messages of hate among Palestinians and undermine the peace process with Israel, cataloged and contextualized according to the PA’s policies of glorifying terrorism, demonizing Israelis and Jews and rejecting Israel’s right to exist.

One of the first posts at this blog concerned Robert Bernstein, chairman of Advancing Human Rights and founder of Human Rights Watch. At the New York press conference launching the book on December 6, as reported in the PMW's press release, he declared Deception a must-read for anyone looking into why after nearly two decades the Oslo peace process has failed to produce a final status agreement. He said:

This book is important because it is not advocacy but a factual catalog of public statements and activities showing that the Palestinian leadership teaches its children to hate, to deny Israel's right to exist and to envision a world without Israel.

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Until the PA starts preparing its children for peace and teaches them to see Israel as a legitimate neighbor, peace will remain an illusion.

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Deception should be read as a warning. Government-sponsored hate speech is incompatible with peace.

Also at the New York launching was Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, who said:

Well documented, Deception confronts a disturbing discovery; Palestinian texts contain scandalous anti-Semitic pages. They incite young children to hate Jews not only in Israel but wherever they live. They must be denounced by all students of history.

Co-author Zilberdik said:

Unless the PA stops presenting terrorists as role models, and Jews and Israelis as inherently evil, and unless they stop educating their people to imagine a world without Israel, there is no chance of achieving authentic peace.

The PA portrays itself to the world as pursuing peace while the international community turns a blind eye to the fact that it teaches its people to never live in peace with Israel.

"There’s a denial by the Western press that this is happening," Bernstein said. "They don’t read Arabic."

Interestingly, back in 2008, Hillary Clinton promoted the research of PMW on Capitol Hill.



Some of her words:

[T]hese children deserves an education that instills respect for life and peace instead of glorifying death and violence. The videos we viewed at that Senate hearing were a clear example of child abuse.... Children were encouraged to see martyrdom and armed struggle and the murder of innocent people as ideals to strive for.

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These textbooks do not give Palestinian children an education; they give them an indoctrination. When we viewed this report in combination with other media that these children are exposed to, we see a larger picture that is disturbing. It is disturbing on a human level, it is disturbing to me as a mother, it is disturbing to me as a United States Senator, because it basically, profoundly poisons the minds of these children.

Hate has no place in the curriculum of schools, and the glorification of violence has no place in the education of children.

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Some people sort of downplay the importance of words. But words really matter. Because in idealizing for children a world without Israel, children are taught never to accept the reality of the State of Israel, never to strive for a better future that would hold out the promise of peace and security to them, and is basically a message of pessimism and fatalism that undermines the possibility for these children living lives of fulfillment and productivity.

This has dire consequences for prospects of peace for generations to come.

Yet today, speaking for the Administration, Clinton seems to have forgotten the Palestinian incitement she talked about as she, and others, hector and pressure Israel to meet Arab demands, get to the "damned" table, and act more democratically, while the USA cozies with the Muslim Brotherhood with its new official branch, Hamas, not to mention playing nice with the OIC, as it seeks to curb through the UN any intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization based on religion or belief, such as criticism of Muhammad or Islam itself. The OIC's attempt is an infringement on the universal right to right to freedom of expression that includes freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

The world in which we live is replete with deception!