Sticks and stones

The New York Times deals with an important issue, that’s slightly masked by the title: Hamas’s Insults to Jews Complicate Peace Effort. The reporter, Steven Erlanger, is actually reporting about incitement not simple insults. Part of the problem is that Erlanger is coming awfully late to the issue. This has been going on for the past 15 years and it doesn’t just come from Hamas. What Erlanger does right is that he consults with Itamar Marcus of PMW and Yigal Carmon of MEMRI. He doesn’t call them “conservatives” or “right-wingers” or use any other qualification. In fact he acknowledges

Along with Mr. Marcus’s group, the Middle East Media Research Institute, or Memri, also monitors the Arabic media. But no one disputes their translations …

The rest of the paragraph though mentions many in Gaza who are upset with the incitement. However I think Erlanger cherry picks a bit as he continues:

While the Palestinian Authority of Fatah also causes some concern — its textbooks, for example, rarely recognize the state of Israel — Yigal Carmon, who runs Memri, said Hamas and its media used “the kind of anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish language you don’t really hear any more from the Palestinian Authority, which hasn’t talked like that in a long time.”

I’m not going to dispute Yigal Carmon, he follows these trends. Erlanger, I think, is giving too much credit to Fatah. Earlier he wrote:

Such incitement against Israel and Jews was supposed to be banned under the 1993 Oslo accords and the 2003 “road map” peace plan. While the Palestinian Authority under Fatah has made significant, if imperfect efforts to end incitement, Hamas, no party to those agreements, feels no such restraint.Since Hamas took over Gaza last June, routing Fatah, Hamas sermons and media reports preaching violence and hatred have become more pervasive, extreme and sophisticated, on the model of Hezbollah and its television station Al Manar, in Lebanon.

The bland reference to Fatah produced textbooks doesn’t tell the whole story. Last year Fox News reported about a recent text book. It didn’t just exclude Israel.

“The books don’t allow for a Palestinian child to accept Israel as a neighbor,” Itamar Marcus, Palestinian Media Watch’s director, told the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) of the United Nations. “When you define the conflict as a religious war you are no longer fighting for your own national identity or territory but for Islamic destiny. You have to accept either Islam or Israel,” Marcus said.”I would be happy if the books talked about a national struggle to get as many rights as possible. But to package it as an everlasting war is to generate years of conflict. It’s child abuse against their own kids,” he said.

And in a press conference with Sen. Hillary Clinton last year, Itamar Marcus said:

The head of the committee is Dr. Naim Abu Al-Humos, former PA minister of higher education. As such, this schoolbook report is not reflecting Hamas ideology, this is reflecting the Fatah ideology. This is very significant, because the new schoolbooks indicate a merging of Fatah towards Hamas ideology.

And by mentioning the textbooks, Erlanger lets Fatah off the hook for its other anti-Isreal propaganda efforts, such as glorifying Ala Abu Dhaim.

Mahmoud Abbas’s official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper has honored the killer of the eight high school students gunned down this week with the status of Shahid – Holy Islamic Martyr. In so doing, the PA is sending its people a straightforward message of support for the terror murders and the murderer. According to the PA interpretation of Islam, there is no higher status that a human being can achieve today than that of Shahid.The official PA daily Al Hayat Al Jadida prominently placed a picture of the killer on the front page, with the caption, “The Shahid Alaa Abu D’heim.” In a Page One article on the terror killings, his act is again defined as a “Shahada achieving” action.

Maybe this doesn’t approach the level of indoctrination of what Hamas does, but this is still pretty clearly incitement, “significant, if imperfect efforts” notwithstanding. This incitement was one of the reasons Nita Lowey put up an objection, later withdrawn, to the United States sending $150 million to the PA.

While I’m glad to see the NY Times cover this topic, there’s little new here that someone with an internet connection and an interest in the topic wouldn’t be able find out on his own. Palestinian incitement should have been on the agenda of all news organization over the past 15 years. That it is so rarely covered reflects poorly on the Jerusalem based correspondents.

Still the article disappoints as it appears to be an effort to whitewash Fatah and show Hamas as the major problem.

I’m not saying that things aren’t worse under Hamas, (see the latest from MEMRI – via memeorandum) I just don’t think Fatah deserves a clean bill of health in this matter.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.