Are 'How to Stab a Jew' Lessons Being Taught to Palestinian Children?
An Evangelical leader in the Palestinian communities has disputed a story from October in which Israel's ambassador to the United Nations presented a diagram claiming Palestinian children are taught lessons such as "how to stab a Jew."
Ambassador Danny Danon made the claim on Oct. 16 before the U.N. Security Council, where he held up a diagram displaying the human body with the title "How to stab a Jew." Danon alleged that such material was being shown to Palestinian children, who he said are "taught how to hate."
"We talk about a lot about incitement — here you see what Palestinian incitement looks like. The picture is being taught in middle schools, in high schools, in elementary schools. Instead of educating about peace and tolerance, the Palestinian leadership is brainwashing children with incitement and hate," Danon said at the time.
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"Palestinian leaders have established an incubator to raise children as terrorists," he added.
Jack Sara, the president of Bethlehem Bible College in Jerusalem, told The Christian Post in an interview on Friday, however, that he does not believe there is truth to the claim that Palestinian children are being taught such things.
"Ironically speaking when did the Palestinian have the time to include such lesson in their text books? The stabbing is a recent phenomenon that began a month or so ago, do you think they are going to change textbooks in day and night," he said, referring to the recent outbreak of violence around the West Bank.
"In saying this of course, none of us would approve the stabbing of innocent [Jewish] people or the killing of Palestinian children and young people left and right with no reason," Sara told CP.
"But the increasing violence and the death of many Palestinian children have caused the Palestinian people to be more and more angry," he continued.
"During summer Jewish extremists torched the house of a Palestinian family in the West Bank and the scenes of the torched family (most of them probably died) and the lack of action that Israel has taken toward these Jewish criminals caused the Palestinian streets to be more angry. Of course add more the frustration of the Palestinian people toward the lack of resolution for the situation," the Evangelical leader said.
There have been strong accusations coming from both sides, with Yisrael Beytenu Chairman Avigdor Liberman accusing the Palestinian Authority of acting "no different" from the Islamic State terror group, after hundreds of Palestinian rioters set fire to the tomb of biblical patriarch Joseph in the city of Nablus back in October.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PA President Mahmoud Abbas have accused each other of inciting several clashes over the past several weeks.
Fox News added in an article on Tuesday that songs about stabbing Jews to death are being played over the Wet Bank airwaves, which is rising tensions in the troubled region, where a dozen Israelis and over 70 Palestinians have been killed.
What is more, the article claimed there are videos posted online that feature images of Palestinian terrorists stabbing Jews, as well as being "martyred" by Israeli forces.
Haaretz reported on Friday that the Israeli army is preparing to deploy 70 reserve battalions to the West Bank in 2016, with the General Staff admitting that it cannot be predicted how long the current clashes with Palestinians will last.
A 2013 study funded by the U.S. government accused both Israelis and Palestinians of portraying the other side negatively in textbooks to children, something which both the Israeli and Palestinian governments have denied, as The Economist reported.
The Guardian described Danon as a strong ally to American conservatives in an article in October, noting that he counts among his friends GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and radio host Glenn Beck. At the same time, Danon, who was only appointed to the U.N. in August, has suggested that Netanyahu has not dealt with Palestinians as hard as he should.
"Danon was a political thorn in Netanyahu's side – increasingly powerful as an agitator within the ruling Likud party against Israel's rightwing prime minister for not being rightwing enough in dealing with the Palestinians – and so last month he was given his new job and, apparently in the hope of silencing him, dispatched to a form of exile at the U.N.," the Guardian reported.
The Permanent Mission of Israel to the U.N. did not respond at the time of publication to several emails and voice-mails from The Christian Post inviting Danon to elaborate on the "how to stab a Jew" diagram.
