Monitoring Palestinian incitement is not enough

[shira]

Monitoring Palestinian incitement is not enough
By FERN OPPENHEIM
11/04/2010 01:58

We need to address the issue of the indoctrination of children who are taught to hate from a very young age.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently announced that Israel will begin to monitor incitement in the Palestinian Authority, and appointed Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser as government coordinator of this program. According to a recent Haaretz article, reports on incitement will be issued periodically and an “incitement index” will be produced by monitoring broadcasts in the official PA media, statements and actions by senior PA officials, and textbooks. While this is welcome news, and a crucial step forward in creating a more conducive climate for peace, it falls short in terms of adequately communicating the full scope and severity of the problem.

Israeli government officials historically have spoken about the culture of hatred in the PA solely in terms of incitement. In addition to incitement, there is a related and arguably even more egregious phenomenon – indoctrination – which should be monitored, reported on and publicized in its own right. To conflate the two and report only on “incitement” is to unnecessarily blur the true nature of what has been taking place in Palestinian society.

Incitement is defined as “stirring to action, attempting to persuade.” A good example of incitement in the PA would be a fiery speech against Israel by a politician or an imam. Indoctrination, on the other hand, is defined as “instruction in the rudiments of a belief system” or, more simply put, brainwashing. An example of indoctrination would be a Palestinian TV program that teaches young children that all of Israel is Palestinian territory, and that suicide missions are the highest form of martyrdom.

There are critical distinctions between the two which highlight the need to address them separately:

more...
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=172803