Making Israel Disappear - Vincent Carroll (Denver Post)
* "In the world inhabited by Palestinian children there is no Israel," says Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch (palwatch.org) in Jerusalem.
* The anti-Israeli content of Palestinian textbooks has been a longstanding concern for anyone who yearns for a permanent political settlement, but surely those books have improved since Yasser Arafat's death in 2004. Not really, says Marcus. If anything, he says, they devote more space than ever to depicting conflict with Israel as a solemn religious duty aimed at liberating a Muslim land.
* Remember, we're talking about textbooks chosen by the Palestinian government led by the allegedly moderate Mahmoud Abbas, not the overtly jihadist Hamas. The PA media are full of similar Islamist references that offer no room for compromise, and that honor terrorists and suicide bombers as national heroes.
* No less ominous is what Marcus describes as the PA's "infrastructure of hate," the relentless depiction of Jews as evil - as conspirators spreading AIDS, for example, or undermining the foundations of the Al-Aqsa mosque.
* Naturally, Jews poisoned Yasser Arafat, too - or at least that is what children are told. In a TV tribute to Arafat earlier this month, one youngster unconsciously presented the essence of this paranoid vision: "He died from poisoning by the Jews. Well, I don't know what he died from, but I know it was by the Jews."
As covered in the Daily Alert Nov. 23, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
White House Appoints Envoy on Antisemitism
Published November 23, 2009. Forward.com
The former head of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs was appointed the U.S. State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism.
Hannah Rosenthal led the JCPA for five years and most recently was the vice president of community relations at the not-for-profit WPS Health Insurance Company.
The post has been vacant since Gregg Rickman left at the end of the Bush administration.
The State Department in a Nov. 20 statement noted ” a growing trend of anti-Semitic hate crimes and discrimination around the world.”
“As Special Envoy, Hannah will lead our efforts to focus our diplomatic energies on challenging these deplorable acts,” the statement said. “As special envoy, she also will work with governments and civil society organizations across the globe to promote tolerance.”
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