Palestinian TV lies: Israel ‘tortures’ and ‘executes’ children

Official Palestinian Authority television encourages viewers – especially children – to hate Jews and kill them if possible.

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

In complete contradiction to the Oslo Accords, official Palestinian Authority (PA) television encourages viewers – especially children – to hate Jews and kill them if possible.

In words and sentiments that could be taken from blood libels of yore, infamous Nazi propaganda newspaper Der Sturmer or any modern white supremacist handbook, PA television hosts teach that Israel murders Arab children in cold blood, according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).

Walaa Al-Battat is one such expert at incitement, having hosted children’s shows in which she calls Israelis “barbarians” who “try to kill people for no reason.” Hosting a TV show on February 9th called Who is the Judge, which was translated by PMW, she said, “The ‘occupation government’ (the common PA euphemism for Israel), which claims it is democratic … has built itself on the bodies of children, and it still murders, imprisons, and tortures them with the most extreme types of torture.”

As a TV presenter, she then got official “confirmation” of her charges from Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Issa Karake, who claimed that children who “did not constitute any danger to the lives of soldiers” have been “summarily executed.” He especially noted that the Israeli government has ordered that “live bullets” be shot at Palestinian youths for throwing rocks at cars.

The fact is that soldiers’ orders are very strict. They are only allowed to shoot at peoples’ legs, and only when their lives are in imminent danger. In a vast majority of cases, non-lethal methods are used to stop attackers from endangering motorists by flinging Molotov cocktails and large stones at vehicles.

It should be noted that dozens of such attacks occur every week throughout Judea and Samaria, with cars damaged regularly and drivers escaping serious injury by good luck alone.

The incitement on PA TV is not limited to engendering hatred and an environment inconducive to peace between Israel and the PA. According to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), it has led to murder as well. The 15-year-old Palestinian terrorist who stabbed mother-of-six Dafna Meir to death on January 19, 2017, in the Samarian community of Otniel was under the influence of such television broadcasts. During their investigation of the case, he told his questioners that “in the period of time preceding the terrorist attack,” he watched “PA television, which presented Israel as a state that ‘kills Palestinian youths.’”  This led him to go to the Jewish village next to his home to try and kill a Jew.

The Interim Agreement (Oslo 2) of September 28, 1995 (Article XXII) states that Israel and the PA “shall seek to foster mutual understanding and tolerance and shall accordingly abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda, against each other and, without derogating from the principle of freedom of expression, shall take legal measures to prevent such incitement by any organizations, groups or individuals within their jurisdiction.”

Founded in 1996, PMW is an Israeli research institute that monitors and analyzes the PA through its media and schoolbooks to educate the public about the messages that Palestinian leaders from the PA (and Hamas), send to the population through the broad range of institutions and infrastructures they control.