'Teaching Terror to Tots': How Palestinian Children are Taught to Kill Israelis

JERUSALEM, Israel  – After last week's brutal Jerusalem terrorist attacks carried out by a 21-year-old and a 13-year old, many are asking questions about how Palestinian children are persuaded to kill Israelis.

Palestinian Media Watch, headed by Itamar Marcus, has been warning the Israeli government for years about how the Palestinians teach children that it's their duty murder Israelis and sacrifice for the cause of Palestine.

Video of the attack and January 28th shootout at the City of David is unnerving to watch. A 13-year-old boy shoots at a Jewish family, wounding a father and son. An armed civilian fires back, wounding the boy.

Marcus told CBN News, "Children are literally being convinced that it's their obligation to go out and kill Israelis." He says it begins with the education of Palestinian children.

"It's their obligation to kill themselves while killing Israelis to become holy martyrs, Shahids. In fact, in this case, I think the child thought he might not survive and, and then he would become an admired child Shahid, as so many other children in this past year have gone on attacks and they have become Palestinian heroes because they were child martyrs. It's all coming because of the brainwashing of the Palestinian Authority," Marcus explained.

He wrote about this in the book, Teaching Terror to Tots. It's a study of Waed, put out by the leading political party, Fatah, as a magazine for children ages 6 to 15.  

“We found that Fatah, which is the party of course of Mahmoud Abbas, who runs the Palestinian Authority, Fatah is brainwashing children to have a deep hatred toward Israel, deep hatred toward Jews of Israel.”

Marcus cites quotes from the magazine, such as:

"The liberation of Palestine will only be achieved through armed struggle.”  (Waed, Issue 27, p.35)

“The period of Zionism will eventually pass … as Palestine is the property of the Palestinian people and it will always remain so.”  (Waed, Issue 28, p. 2)

“Fatah(‘s) … goal is liberating Palestine from the thieving Zionist entity.”  (Waed, Issue 32, p.3) 

“They teach them that Israeli Jews have no history in the land.  We're a foreign colonial implant. We have no right to exist," Marcus said. "And because of that, they teach the children that they have the right under international law, they have the right to use armed conflict to literally to destroy the state of Israel to replace it with Palestine. So, children are brought up believing that they have the right to attack and to kill Israelis.”

After this attack and the synagogue shooting in Neve Yaakov days ago, a Fatah official affiliated with the Palestinian Authority praised the attackers as heroes. 

“It's all part of the same ideology, which they say because Israel has no right to exist, they have a right to kill every Israeli man, woman, and child. In our report, Teaching Terror to Tots, for example, one of the terrorists who is glorified as the ideal heroic prisoner is a terrorist who drove his car, ran over an Israeli woman, a 25-year-old Israeli woman.  And then while she was lying on the ground, he got out and he stabbed her to death because he hadn't killed her with the car. He is described as a superhero for these children, so, we’re not surprised that Fatah is glorifying.  They literally have convinced themselves that they have the right to kill every single Israeli in the name of Liberation of Palestine," Marcus said.

He sees one key solution to end this phenomenon. 

“Israel can't change the situation," he explained. The international community has to use the leverage that it has.  The United States is giving the hundreds of million dollars a year now to the Palestinian Authority, to UNRWA, and to various projects, and Europeans are giving hundreds of millions of Euro. They could make a difference. And, and the fact that they don't insist and they don't condition their funding makes the Americans and makes the Europeans literally responsible partners in this terror, partner in this indoctrination.  They could stop it, but they don't.”

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