Interview with PMW Director Itamar Marcus on PMW’s report: “Teaching Terror to Tots”

Interview with PMW Director Itamar Marcus on PMW’s report: “Teaching Terror to Tots”

Norwegian news agency Verdinytt interviewer: “Mr. Itamar Marcus, you are director of Palestinian Media Watch, and today you are releasing a new report that you say tells us that the Oslo Accords were a failure.”

PMW Director Itamar Marcus: “I’m not saying that the Oslo Accords were a failure, I’m saying that they were a fraud. From Israel’s perspective the Oslo Accords were a failure, but from the Palestinian perspective the Oslo Accords were a great success, because it allowed them to move a terror organization that was based in Tunisia right inside the heartland of Israel, which has enabled them to commit terror. So, the interesting thing here is that there were two Oslo Accords that were signed: Israel signed the Oslo Accords hoping for peace, the Palestinian Authority, or the PLO actually, signed the Oslo Accords hoping to gain a foothold inside of the land of Israel, what they call “Palestine,” so that they could continue their terror war against Israel from the inside. So, from the Israeli perspective it was a failure, from the Palestinian perspective it was a great success.”

Interviewer: “But how would you document the claim that you could call it a fraud?”

Itamar Marcus: “This report, “Teaching Terror to Tots,” is really all the proof that you need. This is Fatah’s educational magazine for ages 6–15. We studied all the magazines going back 8 years, and what we found is that every fundamental that was promised [by the PLO] in the Oslo Accords is contradicted by this report. This report says [that Fatah teaches] that the Jewish people have no right to a state in Israel, that they are all foreigners, they [the Jews] weren’t here, not them, not their grandfathers, not their ancestors, they have no history in the land, therefore they have no right to exist in any borders, and therefore when Israel is destroyed that will be justice, and that will be inevitable. All of these [statements] are messages that repeat over and over again through the 8 years of education that we’ve been watching, and that’s why the Oslo Accords were a fraud, because they [the PA] tell the world it’s a process leading to peace, [but] they tell their children it’s a process leading to Israel’s destruction.”

Interviewer: “So this magazine that you studied, which is called Waed, it’s published by the Lion Cubs and Flowers, a children’s movement within the Fatah party, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority-”

Itamar Marcus: “It’s not ‘within.’ This is the children’s movement, the children’s youth movement of the Fatah party. It’s run by senior people within Fatah. It’s not a small fringe thing. These magazines are given out in the school system. We have pictures of principals having big events where they hand out this magazine. It’s not fringe, this is mainstream Palestinian Authority and their ruling party, which of course is Fatah.”

Interviewer: “Can you give us an example?”

Itamar Marcus: “What they’ll teach for example is that ‘Our people are a 5,000-year-old Palestinian people’ – of course it’s a lie, there never were a Palestinian people until very recently – but they say “We have a 5,000-year-old Palestinian people, and we were invaded by the Pharaohs, by the Hyksos, by the Persians, by the Romans, by the Greeks, and by the Hebrews.” “We defeated all of those occupiers, and just as we defeated those occupiers, we will defeat the current Zionist occupier and he will leave too.” What they say is: In the end all of the Jews will leave “Palestine.” That’s the message, that all the Jews will leave “Palestine.” So there’s no hesitation here, there’s no trying to pretend. They tell it like they really believe, like their ideology is. That’s why I say it in a sense proves that the Oslo Accords were a fraud from the beginning. You can’t tell the international community “We accept Israel” while you’re teaching a whole generation of Palestinian children that “Israel has no right to exist, we have the right to use armed struggle,” - meaning kill even civilians - “in order to achieve our goal, and eventually we will destroy them, and they will not exist.” That’s the [PA/Fatah] message, and like I said, the Oslo [Accords] were a fraud. I believe more what they tell their children than I believe what they’re telling the president of the United States, or the prime minister of Israel, or the prime minister of Norway. Because the international community has not known about this magazine, it is a pristine example of their ideology.

[Verdinytt, Norwegian news agency, Dec. 12, 2022]

Itamar Marcus was interviewed at the Christian Media Summit held in Jerusalem in December 2022.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this video do not represent those of Palestinian Media Watch in any way. PMW monitors and analyzes the Palestinian Authority through its media and schoolbooks. For more info visit: http://palwatch.org.