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Jewish World Review June 25, 2002 / 15 Tamuz, 5762

Diana West

Diana West
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Consumer Reports

Blame the murderer, and the messenger

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | A new study tells American mothers that the safest way to get the kids to school is to put them on the bus. Not so in Israel, where suicide bombers have made Israeli cities and towns limb-littered killing fields. After another Palestinian terrorist incinerated another Israeli bus, a Netanya mother said this to BBC News: "If my kids end up having to get a bus, I will give them a loving speech before they go, in case they never come back."

And Palestinian mothers? They, too, give a loving speech before their children go, sometimes videotaping it, but all too many of them actually hope their youngsters never come back. The sickening fact is, the strongest desire of certain Palestinian parents is for their children to die, killing as many Jews -- infants to aged -- as possible.

Take Mariam Farhat. When she got word her 19-year-old son Mohammed had been shot dead after murdering five Israeli teens and wounding 23 others, she told the Saudi-owned London daily newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat: "I began to cry, 'Allah is the greatest,' and prayed and thanked Allah for the success of the operation. I began to utter cries of joy and we declared that we were happy. ... I encouraged all my sons to die a martyr's death." (Translation by Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI))

The maternal death wish may seem freakish, but Farhat is not alone. "May every bullet hit its target and may God give you martyrdom," Naima el Abed tells her son, Mahmoud, on a video released by Hamas that records the 23-year-old college student's preparations for a rampage against Israel. "This," she says, "is the best day of my life."

Almost as good, no doubt, as the day of her son's funeral. This came after Naima el Abed's little terrorist was shot dead attempting to infiltrate a Jewish community, killing two Israeli soldiers. Consider the Palestinian scene of bereavement that followed: "All around her were women, clapping and celebrating his death, while his father Hassan quietly received congratulations," the Associated Press reported. "Several of their nine other children handed out candy to visitors. 'I wish all my children would be like him and carry out operations like that,' Naima el Abed said."

Chances are excellent that they will -- and not just to please mom. The Palestinian Authority may blindly blame Israel for creating a generation of suicidal maniacs, but it is the PA itself that has helped nurture -- if such a word applies -- this taboo-breaking evil through its relentless propaganda machine.

With sub-titled clips from Palestinian-controlled television MSNBC's Alan Keyes this week gave American viewers an eye-popping look at the pernicious role the PA plays in teaching young people to kill and be killed. It starts with state-sponsored sing-alongs for the romper-room set -- ditties about blood-drenched soil and warriors of jihad.

It continues with shows featuring girls in party dresses delivering bloodthirsty harangues: "When I wander into the entrance of Jerusalem, I'll turn into a suicide warrior! I'll turn into a suicide warrior! In battle-dress! In battle-dress! In battle-dress!" And it goes on through the seemingly continuous loop of government-broadcast sermons. One imam (religious leader) preaches, "Bless those who wired themselves, putting the belt around his waist or his sons, and who enter deeply in the Jewish community and say, 'Allah is great.'" Or: "Wherever you are, kill these Jews and these Americans who are like them and support them."

Mr. Keyes pointed out a young boy in one congregation, asking, Can a child thus indoctrinated ever make peace? This same boy is probably now caught up in the latest Palestinian craze -- trading charms, Pokemon-style, that feature the faces of suicide bombers. Maybe he'll go on to Al-Najah University in Nablus, alma mater of this week's bus bomber, Mohammed "How beautiful it is to kill and be killed" al-Ghoul. Al-Najah, it must be noted, was the scene of last fall's commemoration of the Sbarro pizza-parlor attack, complete with fake pizza slices, plastic body parts and play explosions.

That PA sure teaches its children well -- to create what Ghazi Al-Qusaibi, the Saudi Ambassador to London (infamous for his verses on suicide-bombing), calls "the culture of martyrdom." As he recently told Al Sharq Al Awsat, according to MEMRI, in one of the most chilling statements I have ever read, "When the culture of martyrdom spreads among the Palestinians and the Arabs, the myth of Israel will come to an end." (Not, alas, at the ambassador's own poetry-writing hands. He regrets to say that age and weight disqualify him from personal "martyrdom.")

We hear of the need to reform the PA from its terror-abetting "security" forces, to its corrupt apparatchiks, but the subject of dismantling its poisonous propaganda machine isn't mentioned. As de-Nazification was once required, "de-martyrfication" is one of today's most urgent challenges.

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JWR contributor Diana West is a columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

Up

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05/07/02: Western self-loathing numbs us to violence
05/03/02: Pioneering television
05/01/02: Western self-loathing numbs us to violence
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03/19/02: The Big Lie lives on
03/15/02: The tunnel vision of '9/11'
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02/22/02: The White House heist
02/20/02: Making the grade
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02/04/02: The professor's war
01/29/02: Disconnected dialogue
01/23/02: Anti-Indiscrimination
01/18/02: How much is enough?
01/15/02: Oh brothers, where art thou?
01/10/02: Air on the side of caution
01/04/02: Blacks seeing red at Harvard
01/02/02: Clinton's campaign continues
12/26/01: A tale of two exhibitions
12/24/01: Taliban Idyll
12/19/01: Right is right
12/17/01: Hillary strikes out
12/13/01: Lost files, lost presidency
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12/05/01: Immigration reform talk is not just for 'haters' anymore
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11/14/01: What's the matter with Sara Jane?
11/09/01: A beef with bin Laden's Beef Noodles
11/07/01: Facing up to the FBI's past mistakes
11/02/01: A school that teaches patriots to shutup
10/30/01: The gap between Islam and peace
10/26/01: The ties that bind (and gag)
10/24/01: This war is more than Afghanistan
10/22/01: The fatuous fatwa
10/19/01: Left out
10/16/01: Whose definition of terrorism?
10/11/01: Post-stress disorder
10/08/01: How the West has won
10/01/01: Good, bad or ... diplomacy
09/28/01: Drawing a line in stone
09/21/01: Prejudice or prudence?
09/14/01: When our dead will finally rest in hallowed ground
09/07/01: We want our #$%^&*() audience back!
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08/17/01: Enlightenment at Yale
08/10/01: From oppressors to victims, a metamorphosis
08/03/01: Opening the dormitory door: College romance in the New Century
08/01/01: How-To Hackdom: The dubious art of writing books about writing books
07/20/01: Hemming about Hemmings
07/13/01: Justice has not been served in the Loiuma police brutality case
06/22/01: When PC parades are too 'mainstream'
06/22/01: When "viewpoint discrimination" in our schools was not nearly so gnarly a notion
06/15/01: Lieberman flaunts mantle of perpetual aggrievement
06/07/01: Is graciousness the culprit?
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05/29/01: Campus liberals should be more careful
05/18/01: 'Honest Bill' Clinton and other Ratheresian Logic
05/11/01: Dodging balls, Bugs, and 'brilliance'
05/04/01: Foot in mouth disease and little lost Tories
04/20/01:The last classic Clinton cover-up
04/20/01: D-Day, Schmee-Day
04/06/01: For heaven's sake, a little decency!
03/30/01: The sweet sound of slamming doors and clucking feminists
03/23/01: America's magazines and the 'ick-factor'
03/09/01: Felony neglect
03/02/01: Who's sorry now?
02/23/01: 'Ecumenical niceness' and other latter-day American gifts to the world
02/16/01: Elton and Eminem: Royal dirge-icist meets violent fantasist
02/12/01: If only ...

© 2001, Diana West