PrintJuly 16, 2010
Tentacles of Hate
The Palestinian Authority has long presented terrorists as role models for their children. Summer camps feature training in the use of grenades, guns and rockets. PA summer camps are named after terrorists and the children are taught that becoming a shaheed or martyr is the "fulfillment of the [Palestinian] people's goals of freedom and independence." Thus, while American children splash about at a summer camp swimming pool, engage in arts and crafts and dramatic skits, Palestinian children are learning to hate Jews, Israelis, and Americans. These Palestinian summer camp activities are organized with the support of the Palestinian Center for Dissemination of Democracy and Community Development.
Not only is continual demonization of America, Israel and Jews an integral part of the summer camp experience for Palestinian children, it continues during the school year and is reflected in their textbooks. At a press conference in February 2007, then US Senator Hillary Clinton said:
"These textbooks do not give Palestinian children an education; they give them an indoctrination. When we viewed this [Palestinian Media Watch] report in combination with other media [from other PMW reports] that these children are exposed to, we see a larger picture that is disturbing. It is disturbing on a human level, it is disturbing to me as a mother; it is disturbing to me as a United States Senator, because it basically, profoundly poisons the minds of these children."
Unfortunately, not much has changed since 2007 and the ongoing dehumanization techniques are regularly sanctioned as Palestinian children are taught that "Jews are inherently evil" that "Israeli books should be burned" and that Jews are worse than smallpox."
With this backdrop in mind, it was disturbing to read a post by Joe Kaufman, Chairman of Americans Against Hate and the founder of CAIR Watch and Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor. They co-authored an article entitled "Philadelphia's Islamist Boy Scouts." In the City of Brotherly Love, American children are being filled with similar hate ideology in the Jawala Scouts or the Jawala Scout Youth Leadership Program which was incorporated in Philadelphia in August 2005. Carlin Saafir, the Legal Officer of the Scouts is also involved in organizations such as the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) an entity associated with the terrorist organization Hamas. So, in the streets of Philly, Muslim extremists are teaching the same hate that their counterparts across the Atlantic Ocean are doing.
One must presume that the parents of these children support what their children, some as young as seven years of age, are learning about hand-to-hand combat and firearms training. Surely, they must be aware of the criminal background of some of the leaders of the Jawala Scouts? Is this merely a transplant of the type of terror-training that is endemic among Palestinian children? Is the noose getting tighter in this country as children are being brainwashed to hate, hurt, maim, and possibly murder?
As Kaufman has written, "Jawala Scouts are no Boy Scouts. The group is run by those who wish to use the most innocent in our society for sinister means. . . . What we do not want to hear is that the next terrorist attacker was formerly a member of Jawala Scouts."
Eileen Toplansky can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.
