Bedein - Genesis of an anti-Semitic state

David Bedein..
The Times of Israel..
28 May '12..




Imagine, if you would, if a nascent nation-state, somewhere in the world, was in formation, and that it had taken on these features:

* Selling land to a Jew would be a capital crime.

* Its new constitution would not allow for any juridical status for Judaism. Jews would not even be allowed to live in the country.

* The new school system would inculcate children to make war on the Jews.

* Those who murder Jews would become the heroes of the new country.

* The designated head of state earned his PhD. on the thesis that millions Jews who were murdered during World War II were executed en mass by the Zionists were allies of the Nazis.

The reaction to such a nation state in formation would be an outcry from Jewish groups that monitor anti-Semitism.

Yet we have seen no outcry from most Jewish groups in the case of the proposed Palestinian Arab state, even though it possesses all the horrific six characteristics described above.

However, there are a few prominent non Jews who have expressed concern about the anti-Semitism of the nascent Palestinian Authority.


Eight years years ago, while covering a briefing for a visiting United States congressional delegation provided by the former Vatican representative to Israel, Archbishop Pietro Sambi warned US lawmakers that the new Palestinian Authority’s approved state constitution, funded by USAID, provided no juridical status for any religion other than Islam in the emerging Palestinian Arab entity.

The Papal Nuncio also warned that the Palestinian Authority (PA) had adopted an extreme Shariah law. modeled on the Sharia law that rules in Saudi Arabia, which proscribed the absolute supremacy of Muslims over non-Muslims as matter of law.

Archbishop Sambi provided our news agency with the PA constitution, with the hope that Jewish groups which monitor anti-Semitism would object to the US-funded Palestinian state constitution. It never happened.

Archbishop Sambi initiated a study of the new PA textbooks, which the Vatican determined to be anti-Semitic in nature. At the recommendation of Archbishop Sambi, the Italian government pulled its money out of the Palestinian Ministry of Education’s textbook project.

An expert whose research is impeccable on this subject is Dr. Arnon Groiss who earned his PHD in Islamic studies at Princeton, and worked for ten years as a researcher for IMPACT.se , also known as the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, where Dr. Groiss became an expert on Arab school books.

Over the past year, Dr. Gross made presentations for staffers and members of the US Congress and the Canadian Parliament, where he showed how the new textbooks of the Palestinian Authority, instead of educating for peace with Israel, promote the “armed struggle” to liberate Palestine, all of Palestine.

From these textbooks, Groiss showed that the PA curriculum teaches the following fundamentals:

* Jews are foreigners and have no rights in Palestine.

* The Jews have a dubious, and even murderous, character.

* Israel is an illegitimate usurper that occupied Palestine in 1948 and 1967.

* Israel is the source of all kinds of evil done to the Palestinians.

* Peace with Israel based on reconciliation is not sought.

* Armed struggle for liberation is encouraged instead.

* The exact area to be liberated is never restricted to the areas taken by Israel in 1967..

* Jihad and martyrdom are explicitly encouraged.

The list of accusations against Israel appearing in the new Palestinian Authority schoolbooks includes more than 25 allegations, including:

* Israel contributes to Palestinian social ills and family violence.

* Israel causes the increase of drug abuse cases in Palestinian society.

* Israel pollutes the Palestinian environment.

* Israel usurps Muslim and Christian holy places.

* Israel strives to obliterate the Palestinian national identity and heritage.

Over the past year, New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, a 32 year Republican veteran of Congress, announced that he would lead a campaign for the US to condition aid to UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority on the nullification of the anti-Semitic curriculum of the Palestinian Authority.

Rep. Smith’s initiative was reminiscent of Archbishop Sambi, who died this year while serving as the Papal Nuncio in Washington.

Archbishop Sambi was never afraid to take a stand on the official anti-Semitism which he discerned in the Palestinian Authority,

It remains to be seen whether mainstream Jewish groups will follow the lead of Rep. Smith and the late Archbishop Sambi to make such demands of the Palestinian Authority.

Sometimes it takes courageous gentiles to speak up, so that Jews will not hesitate to follow their example.

Link: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/genesis-of-an-anti-semitic-state/


David Bedein, who grew up in Philadelphia and moved to Israel in 1970 at the age of 20, is an MSW community organizer by profession and an expereinced investigative journalist. In 1987 he established the Israel Resource News Agency, with offices at the Beit Agron Int’l Press Center in Jerusalem, where he also serves as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.

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