A new video released by Palestinian Media Watch that translates a program on official Palestinian TV teaches Palestinian children that Israel does not exist.
On the video, the teacher addresses a Palestinian student named Faisal and explains, “Faisal lives in the occupied Palestinian lands in the Tamra area,” referring to an area near Haifa. “On the school radio he broadcasts Palestinian songs and tries to spread the consciousness within him and his love for Palestine to all the surrounding cities and villages. This is very nice, particularly when they [Israelis] are trying to keep that area Israeli, but the Palestinians there need to emphasize to everyone that this area is Palestinian.”
Faisal responds to the host by telling the children who sit next to him that “there is no such thing as Israel...Israel can occupy Palestine, but it cannot occupy the Palestinian child’s memory.”
Faisal’s comments are met with applause.
The video originally aired on April 26, about two weeks before Nakba Day, the day after the Gregorian calendar date for Israeli Independence Day.
On Nakba Day, Palestinian leaders and Israel’s Arab MKs used the opportunity to attack Israel as the Jewish state.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh accused Israel of waging a war of geography on the Palestinian people.
“Israel is waging a war of geography on us by confiscating our land on a daily basis,” he said. “There are 711,000 settlers who make up 24% of all those living in the West Bank alone. We are also facing a war of demography to expel our people from Jerusalem. Some 112,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem live on the other side of the [security] fence.”
Shtayyeh was referring to Jerusalem residents who hold blue identity cards but live in villages and neighborhoods in Areas B and C of the West Bank outside of the city’s municipal boundaries.
Similarly, Arab MK Mtanes Shehadeh (Balad) spoke at a Nakba Day event in Tel Aviv. He told the crowd that “Israel has been trying for 71 years to erase the Palestinians’ identity and collective memory by any possible colonial means, from the Nation-State Law to the ‘deal of the century’; to squelching freedom of expression, demolishing homes, political persecution and continual occupation and violation of international law.”