U.S. Members of Congress are calling upon Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to take action against PA broadcasts that incite violence and hatred against Israelis and Jews:
April 11, 2013
President Mahmoud Abbas
Ramallah, West Bank
via PLO Delegation to the United States
1732 Wisconsin Ave NW
Washington, DC 20007Dear Mr. President,
We are writing to express our grave dismay and deep concern over the recent broadcast of a children’s program on Palestinian Television which included rabid incitement against the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
The children’s show, The Best Home, included a scene in which a young girl recited a poem filled with messages of hate and other libels demonizing Jews. The poem asserted that Jews, “Allah’s enemies, the sons of pigs,” defiled the Quran and Jerusalem, and “murdered children,” “cut off their limbs,” and “raped the women in the city squares.”
This mendacious message of vitriol – aimed at the future generation of Palestinians — not only serves to foster hatred and violence but undermines the very essence of coexistence and peace which you have advocated.
Such incitement, which we had hoped was being stopped under your leadership, can only poison the minds of innocent young children instead of promoting coexistence and respect for one another which is a cornerstone for true peace.
During Secretary of State Kerry’s just completed trip to Israel and the territories, he correctly cited the need to break down barriers of “mistrust” as a condition for peace-making. In that spirit, we strongly urge you to immediately take whatever actions are necessary to ensure that such messages of hate are never broadcast again and that they end up in the dustbins of history.
The bipartisan letter – from Congressmen Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Eliot Engel (D-NY), and Trent Franks (R-AZ) – comes amid a of wave of incitement.
PA television recently aired what is becoming an annual tribute to the perpetrators of a 1974 massacre in the Israeli city of Ma’alot that saw 25 Israelis killed, 22 of them children. It has also aired programs of children reciting poems calling Jews “enemies of Allah” and “descendants of pigs.” Palestinian incitement has been blasted by diplomats and experts for radicalizing the Palestinian public and undermining the prospects for durable peace.
The watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch also recently uncovered that multiple PA television shows were having children read the same poem with the same lines: a call for “war… to destroy the Zionists’ soul”:
[Photo: palwatch / YouTube]