Thursday, January 24, 2008
Palestinian Media Watch reports (not online yet): PATV Hate-Video running 4 months
"My enemy, oh snake! Around the land, you are coiled. You have no choice, oh enemy, but to leave my country."
[Palestinian TV, January 2008, broadcast daily]
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
A hate video broadcast continuously on official (Fatah-controlled) Palestinian TV over the past several months calls Israel "my enemy" and spews out messages of hate and loathing. The song's refrain, "My enemy, oh enemy," is repeated over and over throughout the song. Israel is not even given the courtesy of a name, but is tagged with such labels as "treacherous," "imperialism" and a "coiled snake."
The Palestinian is portrayed as a heroic victim who courageously confronts the evil "enemy" Israel...
...The goal of this music video clip is to inculcate loathing of Israel and anticipation of its destruction. The repeated broadcast over recent months by Fatah-controlled television is consistent with other Arabic-language hate messages currently being disseminated -- in spite of the peace talks.
PA TV first aired this music video in 2004 and resumed its broadcast in October, 2007. It was broadcast throughout the Annapolis conference as well as during President Bush's visit to Israel. It continues to be aired on almost a daily basis...
Here is the video:
What's interesting here is that under the usual circumstances, a government engaged in sincere negotiations would be using its bully pulpit to prepare its people to accept the agreement they're working on. It's generally up to the terrorist to commit the atrocity in order to kill the middle ground and make the population more extreme in order to prevent any compromise solution from being found. Their job is to kill or make impossible the job of the moderate. In this case, it's instructive the extent to which Palestinian Arab society itself and its "government" has become the terrorist. When the table of peace is set, they make every effort to destroy its prospects themselves.
