A familiar quality of unreality pervades much of the news and commentary
about
the ascendance of Hamas in recent Palestinian elections.

Note is endlessly made of the fact that Hamas, with its clinics and other
welfare
operations, is less “corrupt” than the old-guard Fatah chieftains, providing
needed services the Palestinian Authority neglected. And many news stories
duly report that the radical Islamic organization specializes in suicide
bombing
and rejects Israel’s existence.

But as to why Palestinians en masse are comfortable choosing a leadership
engaged
in the defamation and murder of innocent Jews — including children,
teenagers
and the elderly — very little is said.

Harold Evans, writing in London’s Times several years ago, observed:
“Everyone
talking about Palestine or terrorism is talking in a vacuum, for nothing can
be understood without proper appreciation of the way minds have been
poisoned.”
(“Anti-Semitic Lies and Hate Threaten Us All” June 28, 2002)

He had it exactly right. Without addressing the mind-poisoning, there can be
no clear understanding of events. Yet, as throughout the Oslo years of
journalistic
indifference to Palestinian Authority indoctrination of its people in hatred
and rejection of Israel, so too current reporting gives scant attention to
the calamitous effects of inculcated Jew-hatred in shaping events related to
Hamas and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Islamist group has long made clear the importance of anti-Semitic and
anti-Israel
indoctrination, which occurs intensively throughout its network of
charities,
schools, mosques, clinics and summer camps. The Intelligence and Terrorism
Information Center cites a typical leaflet found in the office of a Hamas
“charity
committee” in Tulkarm entitled “Jewish hatred of the human race.” In it,
Jews
are described as enemies of Islam and its values and murderers of the
prophets.
The Hamas Charter itself is anti-Semitic, citing, for instance, the “Nazism”
of Jews and blaming them for the world wars as well as the French and
communist
revolutions.

From earliest childhood, lurid messages demonize Zionists and Jews as evil
and extol the joys of martyrdom attained in killing them. Hamas is in the
forefront
of Palestinian groups exploiting the Internet to disseminate propaganda,
with
approximately 20 sites in seven languages. A children’s on-line magazine
called
“Al-Fateh”(www.al-fateh.net) – meaning the conqueror – juxtaposes child-like
cartoons and stories with shocking images of violence. Issue number 38 of
Al-Fateh,
includes a photograph of the decapitated head of a female suicide bomber.
The
caption reads “Zaynab Abu Salem who carried out the suicide bombing attack.
Her head was severed from her pure body and her headscarf remained to
decorate
her face. Your place is in heaven in the upper sky, Zaynab … sister
[raised
to the status of heroic] men.” Abu Salem had killed two Israeli border
policemen
and wounded 17.

Menashe Komemi, 19, who helped support a family in which a disabled father
was unemployed, and Mamoya Tahio, 20, an immigrant from Ethiopia, lost their
lives trying protect those around them against the female terrorist.

Terrorism specialist Matthew Levitt writes of a Hamas “incitement machine”
in the Winter 2004 Middle East Quarterly, describing, for instance, a
kindergarten
graduation run by a Hamas charitable association. The event “featured 1600
preschool age children wearing uniforms and carrying pretend rifles. A
five-year-old
girl reenacted attacks on Israelis by dipping her hands in red paint,
mimicking
the bloodied hands Palestinians proudly displayed after the lynching of two
Israelis in Ramallah.”

He describes an Islamic school in which “11-year-old Palestinian student
Ahmed
states, ‘I will make my body a bomb that will blast the flesh of Zionists,
the sons of pigs and monkeys …I will tear their bodies into little pieces
and cause them more pain than they will ever know.’” His classmates shout in
response, “God is great” and his teacher adds “May the virgins give you
pleasure.”

The depth of hatred instilled from a young age is such that mothers push
their
own sons to suicide-murder. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
has translated an interview with Umm Nidal Farhat, a woman whose three sons,
raised on incessant hatred, joined Hamas, one of them killing five Israelis
before being shot, the others engaging in other anti-Israel actions and
killed
by Israel. Her own remorseless expression of hatred is chilling – and she
was
just elected by her fellow Palestinians to the Palestinian legislature.
Farhat
declares in the interview that even women and “old people” are occupiers and
“all means are legitimate” against them.

She says: “I am proud and honored to be a terrorist for the sake of Allah.”

Why, one wonders, do so many reporters consistently neglect the
mind-poisoning
that profoundly affects Palestinian views and actions? Why do American
journalists,
whose own society promotes acute awareness of the power of stereotypes and
insensitive language to damage others, seem impervious to the grotesque
demonizing
of Jews and Israelis and the deadly toll that hatred continues to take?

www.camera.org

Andrea Levin is Executive Director of CAMERA, Committee for Accuracy in
Middle
East Reporting in America

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 9th, 2006 and is filed under press.