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[The United Nations pays for Palestinian teachers and textbooks.] Palestinian Schools: Breeding Grounds for Hate ***Palestinian schools teach a form of anti-Jewish hatred and intolerance not unlike what was taught to German children during the Nazi era. For instance, ninth-grade Palestinian students study from official textbooks that assert, "Treachery and disloyalty are character traits of the Jews, and therefore one should beware of them." These books depict Jews as satanic, violent, "thieving conquerors" who have stolen Arab land and must be slaughtered.
Further, Palestinian textbooks glorify jihad and martyrdom as the only legitimate means to liberating "Palestine." Even children's poems are laced with calls to war. Fifth-graders memorize such lines as, "I shall take my soul in my hand and hurl it into the abyss of death." Sixth-graders read a story glorifying a young boy who is raised with "the love of jihad flowing through his veins and filling every fiber of his being"; a boy who experiences his greatest "joy" when he sees "the enemy lying dead" or "fleeing for their lives." An eighth-grade literary text denies any Jewish connection to the Western Wall, and teaches children to identify Muslim and Christian holy sites but completely omits any reference to Jewish sites.
The propaganda campaign is relentless. A fourth-grade religion book reads, "The Jews are enemies to the prophets and believers." According to an eighth-grade text, "Mankind has suffered from the yoke of racism at all times, because Satan has made their evil deeds seem beautiful...Such people are the Jews." In a book used by sixteen-year-olds, the Nazi Holocaust is depicted as a response to the Jewish people's "greed and religious fanaticism." Still another volume suggests, "Perhaps Allah brought the Jews to our land, so their death would take place here, as it did in their wars with the Romans." These can hardly be mistaken for the words of a "peace curriculum."
Palestinian schoolbooks make no mention of the concept of peace with Israel, nor of the peace process initiated at Oslo. Indeed the Jerusalem Post reported in November 2001 that the word "peace" has entirely disappeared from these books. Moreover, the maps contained therein do not even acknowledge Israel's existence, instead depicting "Palestine" as an Arab land stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The Palestinian "problem," students learn, is not Israel' s control over the West Bank and Gaza, but Israel's very existence. They are further taught that Jews are not only enemies of Islam, but constitute an illegitimate, foreign presence in the region. From the earliest age, children learn of their religious obligation to help drive out the infidels and reclaim "every centimeter" of "Palestine," the "stolen" land.
These anti-Jewish attitudes filter down from the very highest level of the Palestinian Authority. During a recent visit to a school for Palestinian girls, Yasser Arafat himself told the students of the glorious exploits of two female terrorists, Abir Wahidi and Dalal Magrabi; the latter not only participated in a deadly bus attack against Israelis, but further distinguished herself by snatching a Jewish baby from its mother and hurling it into the already burning bus.***
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SELF REPRESENTATION AS PEASANTS***The peasant identity is reinforced by the emphasis on speaking the Palestinian peasant dialect. Members of the community are quick to criticize those who mix their Palestinian peasant dialect with other words from Jordanian or urban Palestinian dialects. Women and children who spend most of their time in the valley speak the peasant's dialect more or less unalloyed. Boys and girls from the community who attend UNRWA schools until the ninth grade continue to speak the same peasant Palestinian dialect. These completely free schools are only for Palestinians and most of the teachers are also Palestinian refugees. When the students move to the secondary governmental schools with other students from different backgrounds, the boys start to mix their peasant dialect with the Jordanian dialect while the girls adapt terms from the urban Palestinian dialect. But both boys and girls speak only the peasant Palestinian dialect when they go back to their homes and their community in Wadi al-Rimam.
….. An older man from Wadi al-Rimam described this refugee identity: "when we first came to Jordan we hated to be referred to as refugees. This was disgracing and humiliating; it meant that we are poor, waiting for aid from the relief agencies, and no one believed that we [once] had land and big beautiful houses. But now we are proud that we are refugees, and we will stay as refugees until we return to our homes. My refugee card and not my Jordanian passport proves my Palestinian asil (origin). Although the name of Falasteen (Palestine) has been changed, my village was demolished and given a Hebrew name, the day will come when all Palestinian refugees and all of their descendent Will return home and build Palestine as we built all the Arab countries. After 1948, UNRWA issued refugee cards for Palestinian refugees to receive aid and UN services. Now although many of these services do not exist any more, almost all refugees have kept their cards and they apply for refugee cards for their newborn children. Not only have needy Palestinians in camps demanded identity cards from UNRWA, but also some wealthier people have argued that refugee cards should be issued to all refugees regardless of their need for relief. The refugee card is a signifier of a temporary, unique status, and a tangible representation of the UN commitment to effect their return to Palestine. "The UNRWA identity cards were like the 'promissory note' on their right to return to Palestine" (Plascov 1981:49).***
I'm glad to see someone else making the connection to welfare. The Palestinians as a "nation" have been the only nation in history founded on welfare and surviving on welfare for the past 54 years. Is it any surprise that this nation seems to be made up of psychopaths divorced from reality?
A couple days ago, Brit Hume interviewed *somebody* (foo, I can't remember who) who broke down the figures, and also said that this program on the ground was run by the Palestinians with very little oversight from either the UN or the countries giving the money.