Demonization of Israel and incitement to violence are rampant in Waed, a magazine published by Fatah’s youth movement and distributed in Palestinian Authority schools, a new study by Palestinian Media Watch found.
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reviewed 17 issues of Waed published in December 2014-September 2021, and found that the magazine glorifies terrorists who murdered Israelis as heroes and anticipates a Palestinian state that will replace all of Israel, including the removal of Israelis from the land.
PMW distributed its report to Norwegian lawmakers on Wednesday, as the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee for funding to the PA met in Oslo.
The magazines include references to “the giant Israeli murder machine” and “the Israeli monster,” and accuse Israel of behaving like Nazis.
Waed claims Palestinians have a “right to wage an armed struggle to take back its stolen homeland,” and “the liberation of Palestine will only be achieved through armed struggle.”
That struggle includes attacks on civilians, which is made apparent from the praising of terrorists such as Dalal Mughrabi, who took part in the murder of 37, including 12 children, in 1978, as “heroic fighters of Palestine,” “martyrs,” and “heroes,” while their terror attacks are called “daring self-sacrifice operations.”
Waed is a publication of Lion Cubs and Flowers, the youth movement of the PA’s ruling party Fatah. The movement is for Palestinian children aged 6-15, and its magazine is distributed at summer camps, schools and activities.
The magazines include a falsified history, tying today’s Palestinians to a “Canaanite Palestinian Arab” people that settled the land 5,000 years ago, when, in fact, Arab migration to the Levant began in the seventh century.
Archeological evidence of Jewish history in the Land of Israel is presented by Waed as Palestinian artifacts, such as a coin with ancient Hebrew script on it being called ancient Palestinian currency.
Israelis are called “foreigners who came from all ends of the earth…who did not know Palestine and did not live in it – neither them nor their fathers and forefathers,” as well as “invading Jews.”
The future Waed presents as an inevitability is one in which Israel no longer exists. The magazine features the popular Palestinian practice of presenting maps of “Palestine” as the entire state of Israel.
“The period of Zionism will eventually pass,” the magazine states. “There is no invader who…did not leave [Palestine] defeated in the end, and that is what will happen to the Zionist invaders.”
PMW said in its report that “the Waed message [is that] Israel was created by theft, its continued existence is a crime, and its termination via the armed struggle is justified and inevitable. The education transmitted to children via Waed will be the driving force for Palestinian hate and terror for another generation.”