For this year’s annual commemoration of Yasser Arafat’s death, PA TV chose to rebroadcast video clips of Palestinian children’s messages in honor of Arafat, which included hate speech against Jews.
Several of the selected messages feature children repeating the ongoing Palestinian Authority libel that the Jews killed Arafat by poisoning. One boy first states that Arafat was poisoned by the Jews, but then corrects himself, saying: “Well, I don’t know what he died from, but I know it was by the Jews.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYj4Li4Dc_s]
The teaching that evil originates with the Jews was the basis for much of the Antisemitism throughout history. It should be stressed that these were prerecorded interviews with the children, yet PA TV chose to include the hate speech in the compilation. None of the children in the film speaks about peace; in fact, they do the opposite.
As Palestinian Media Watch reported at the time, this film was first broadcast in 2009 on the fifth anniversary of Arafat’s death as part of a televised memorial ceremony.
The boy’s comment quoted above, “I know it was by the Jews,” and the other children’s beliefs that “the Jews” killed Arafat, indicate the PA’s success in teaching Palestinian children hate libels and demonization of Jews.
The decision by PA TV to rebroadcast this is a further indicator that the PA continues to promote the values of hatred, violence and Martyrdom that the children have adopted.
