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Incitement to Hatred

Palestinian anti-Israel propaganda incurs no cost from United States, study shows

March 23, 2012

The Palestinian government’s routine use of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda "incurs no real cost from the United States, despite its nominal opposition and occasional pro forma protests against it," according to a report recently released by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think-tank close to the Obama administration.

Palestinian incitement against Israel—such as erasing the Jewish state from maps in schoolbooks and holding government-sanctioned powwows with terrorists—is met with little outrage by the U.S. government, the report states. Israel, meanwhile, is frequently singled out for criticism.

"U.S. officials have reportedly shown no interest in reviving the (admittedly frustrating and ultimately futile) Oslo-era trilateral anti-incitement committee—even when Israeli and Palestinian officials agreed to suggest that modest procedural step, around the time of the Itamar massacre a year ago," David Pollock, a fellow at the institute, writes on the think tank’s website. "The main U.S. effort in this area today appears to be confined to supporting an exhaustive and painstaking joint academic study of possible incitement in Israeli and Palestinian textbooks, with results not due to be published until several months from now."

Government-backed anti-Semitic propaganda has become increasingly prevalent in the Palestinian territories, the report notes.

"The PA youth magazine Zayzafuna, for instance, recently published a girl's dreamy vision of Hitler," Pollock writes. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization funded the magazine until that essay’s publication; the organization controversially unilaterally accepted the "State of Palestine" as a member.

In addition, "the official mufti of Jerusalem delivered a televised sermon invoking the hadith (quotation attributed to Muhammad) about ‘the Muslims killing all the Jews’ to bring on Judgment Day—in sharp contrast to earlier PA efforts to scrub Hamas-style rhetoric from mosques under its jurisdiction," the report notes. "And Abbas himself delivered a highly inflammatory address to a conference on Jerusalem held in Doha last month that falsely accused Israel of planning to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque."

"In each case," the report notes, "the PA response to criticism was not apology or even acknowledgment, but denial or deflection, by pointing to supposed Israeli provocations or transgressions."

The U.S. has remained quiet, prompting Pollock, as well as Congressional observers and Middle East experts to wonder why.

"The United States should do more to support this minimal standard. It can not only quietly encourage regional leaders to refrain from incitement but also hold them to account in some concrete fashion whenever they step over the line," Pollock writes. "It can help craft more positive high-level messages with some realistic prospect of seeing the light of day."

Inside the government, incitement is "just not considered a priority, as it’s not one of the ‘big’ issues," explained Brent Sasley, a Middle East expert and assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas, Arlington. "I don't think government argues for a grass-roots campaign of tolerance and peace, in either the Palestinian areas or Israel—yet it's here where such a difference could be made in schools, religious institutions, through social clubs, etc."

Noah Pollak, the executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, blamed the Obama administration for employing "an unwritten policy of never singling out the Palestinians for criticism, while subjecting Israel to regular barrages."

Pollak added, "It is not enough to condemn violence after it happens—Obama should be condemning the Palestinian culture that encourages and excuses it."

Career diplomats and other veteran employees at the State Department have become desensitized to the Palestinian’s rhetoric against Israel, experts noted.

"There are too many career employees sitting at desks in Foggy Bottom who are true believers in the Palestinian cause, and what normal people see as anti-Semitism, they see as political expression," said a GOP Senate source.

Violent and derogatory rhetoric against Jews and Israel has fostered a culture-wide aversion to the peace process, added the GOP source.

"This is a core reason why peace has not come to fruition after all these years," said the senior GOP Senate aide, who closely follows foreign assistance. "We continue to allow the Palestinian Authority to promote incitement against Jews and Israel in all its institutions of power—and more troubling, it’s a narrative that precludes a final peace settlement that recognizes the right of a Jewish state of Israel to exist."

The GOP aide recommended that the Obama administration and Congress "start looking at where our U.S. dollars are going, what type of messages are coming out of our U.S.-funded NGOs" and other groups operating on the ground.

"We should in the U.S. law make it clear that government funding is tied to incitement and anti-Semitism—if we see it, you lose the money," the aide said.