izraelczyk1
23.12.02, 09:00
Glorification of 'martyrdom' on upswing Arafat TV
station plays slick music video aimed at youth
The five-minute video clip could have been produced by Jennifer Lopez to the
music of Pink Floyd. It is professional, dreamy and haunting. It begins with
a handsome young schoolboy writing a farewell letter to his parents. In this
pop saga, the boy goes off on a "mission" in which he dies, and his farewell
letter is handed to his father, who tears his hair at the news.
Scenes of the boy's last day scroll across the screen as an enchanting male
voice puts the words of his letter to a haunting melody. "Do not be sad, my
dear, and do not cry over my parting. Oh, my dear father; how sweet is
Shahada (martyrdom). How sweet is Shahada when I embrace you, oh my land."
In the video, the boy embraces the ground with his arms stretched out as
upon a cross. His death is gentle, innocent, heroic ’Äě not at all the
brutal dismemberment that awaits suicide bombers. "Mother, my most dear, be
joyous over my blood," he sings. "And do not cry for me."
That same line, "Mother, do not cry for me," has appeared in at least three
farewell letters from 14- to 17-year-old Palestinians who have carried out
suicide bombings since the film clip first aired on Palestinian television
in May 2001, says Itamar Marcus, an Israeli researcher who unearthed the
music videos. Yasser Arafat's official TV station broadcast the dreamy clip
virtually every day for more than a year in a clear effort to incite
children to murder/suicide. It aired between cartoons, after school and in
the early evening between regularly scheduled programs. Marcus plans to play
these clips to a congressional committee later this month and is urging the
United States to pressure the Palestinian leader to stop the deadly
propaganda.
"For the six years we'd been following PA (Palestinian Authority) TV, we'd
seen on average 15 minutes of violent, anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic video
clips interspersed between regular programming throughout the day," Marcus
tells Insight in Jerusalem. "Suddenly, in the summer of 2000, it went up to
two hours per day, just as (former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud) Barak was
getting ready to give away 98 percent of the territory the PA wanted at Camp
David."
In the beginning, the violent trailers mostly were composed of old news
footage edited to glamorize suicide bombings and to call people to the
streets. But soon, professional filmmakers were called in to take advantage
of their special skills.
Twelve-year-old Mohammad al-Dura is the most famous Palestinian "martyr."
Images captured live by a Palestinian film crew and broadcast by French
state-owned television on Oct. 2, 2000, show the boy shot to death in his
father's arms, presumably by Israeli soldiers.
Now he has become the posthumous star of a five-minute film clip produced
and edited by Arafat's official state-owned TV. The opening screen is a
handwritten message "signed" by the young Mohammad:
"I am waving to you not to say goodbye, but to say, follow me."
A child actor depicts the death of the young Mohammad, said to have been
"massacred" by Israeli soldiers, then
portrays him in paradise, riding on a Ferris wheel, flying a kite and
playing on the beach. A haunting lyric accompanies these pictures, with
lines including the following: "How sweet is the fragrance of the Shahids.
How sweet is the scent of the earth, its thirst quenched by the gush of
blood flowing from the youthful body." Then the vocalist does repeats with a
choir:
Vocalist: "Oh father; till we meet. Oh father; till we meet. I shall go with
no fear, no tears. How sweet is the fragrance of the Shahids."
Choir: "How sweet is the fragrance of the Shahids."
The controversy over whose bullets actually killed Mohammad al-Dura remains.
The Western media, led by the French News Agency and French A2 television,
still insist that he was killed by Israelis. But an investigation by the
Israeli army raised serious doubts, since Israeli soldiers would have had to
shoot around a corner to hit him.
"These are the most evil films we ever saw," Marcus tells Insight as he
plays a selection of these video clips, with English subtitles provided by
his Palestinian Media Watch.
One of the many myths spread by apologists for terrorism is that suicide
bombers come from poor families where "hopelessness" drives them to despair
and suicide. But, ever since Israel and the Clinton administration brought
Arafat to Gaza in July 1994, he has been fostering hatred of Jews and
promoting the cult of martyrdom through the schools, the mosques and the
state-owned media. In eight years, the virus has infected all sectors of
Palestinian society.
"The new role model for young Palestinian women is Wafa Idriss, the first
female suicide bomber," Marcus says. Idriss blew herself up in Jerusalem on
Jan. 27, 2002, killing an 81-year-old Israeli man and wounding 150 others,
four seriously. "We're beginning to see her name pop up everywhere," Marcus
says. "There's the Wafa Idriss course in human rights and democracy at
Al-Quds University in Jerusalem. There are Wafa Idriss schools run by the
United Nations. It's incredible."
On June 9, 2002, two well-dressed 11-year-old girls named Wala and Yussra
were interviewed on a talk show broadcast by PA TV about their personal
yearning to achieve death through Shahada, which they said is the desire of
"every Palestinian child." These were not children of the camps, but from
the middle classes. They explained that their goal was not to become doctors
or teachers, but to achieve a proper death through martyrdom for Allah.
Host: "You described Shahada as something beautiful. Do you think it is
beautiful?"
Wala: "Shahada is very, very beautiful. Everyone yearns for Shahada. What
could be better than going to paradise?"
Host: "What is better, peace and full rights for the Palestinian people, or
Shahada?"
Wala: "Shahada. I will achieve my rights after becoming a Shahida." Yussra:
"Of course Shahada is a good thing. We don't want this world; we want the
afterlife. We benefit not from this life, but from the afterlife. The
children of Palestine have accepted the concept that this is Shahada, and
that death by Shahada is very good. Every Palestinian child aged, say 12,
says: 'Oh Lord, I would like to become a Shahid.'"
Yet another film clip aimed at children intersperses scenes of "martyred"
children about to be buried with normal street scenes of children playing.
It ends with a black screen stamped with the official crest of the PA and a
slogan in Arabic with its English translation: "Ask for death, the life will
be given to you."
There is no precedent for this type of indoctrination. "Not even Hitler did
this," Marcus says. "The Hitler Youth were taught to kill, not to be killed.
This is the ultimate in child abuse. Here you have a whole generation of
kids who think the most they can accomplish in life is to die for Allah.
This is a tragedy with implications that no one in the West has begun to
contemplate."
Some Palestinian parents have tried to raise their voices against the
barbarity of the PA indoctrination, but to little effect. Bassam Zakhout is
the father of a 14-year-old boy who set off in April with two schoolmates to
attack an Israeli military outpost near the Netzarim settlement in Gaza.
Prompted by the calls to martyrdom, the three teen-agers armed themselves
with knives and packed their schoolbags with explosives, apparently given to
them by Hamas, and ran across open ground toward the army post, where they
were gunned down. Bassam Zakhout blamed PA TV for inciting the attack.
"I am against all this, especially at his age," he said. "We should not
destroy this generation. They are the leaders of the f