ZGram - 8/16/2002 - "Hate speech, Israeli style"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

August 16, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Amazing editorials and letters appear ever more frequently in 
mainstream publications.  Here's one in the Toronto Star, not exactly 
a bastion of conservatism:

[START]

Letter: ISRAELI CHILDREN ARE ALSO FED HATE PROPAGANDA

Toronto Star -- April 8, 2002

Re Don't kid yourself: Hatred for Jews is deeply rooted,

Letter, April 6; What turns kids into suicide bombers? April 5.

I have grown very tired of the argument that the violence in the 
Middle East is rooted in Arab hatred of Jews. Reader Alan Rosenberg 
writes that, "it has long been established that anti-Israel, 
anti-Jewish hatred is endemic to the Palestinian school system." I 
decided to examine the ideas pervading the Israeli school system and 
found the following. In his book An Ugly Face In The Mirror, Israeli 
writer Adir Cohen discussed a survey of the attitudes of Grade 4 and 
6 Jewish students.

When asked about their attitude toward Arabs, 75 per cent described 
the Arab as a "murderer," "criminal" and "terrorist," and 80 per cent 
described the Arab, "as someone dirty with a terrifying face." Ninety 
per cent believed, "that Palestinians have no rights whatsoever to 
the land in Israel or Palestine." This, by the way, was in 1985, even 
before the first intifada broke out.

Of 1,700 Israeli children's books published after 1967, Cohen found 
that 520 of them maligned Arabs. Of those 520, 66 per cent called 
Arabs "violent," 52 per cent "evil," 37 per cent "liars," 21 per cent 
"greedy," 28 per cent "two-faced," and 27 per cent "traitors." The 
list goes on.

As for Howard Gerson's and Harold Waller's statement that suicide 
bombings are due to, "indoctrinated hatred actively carried out or 
condoned by Yasser Arafat... and by Arab states," consider the 
following.

During the past year alone, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, founder and spiritual 
leader of Shas, Israel's third-largest political party (which also 
belongs to Ariel Sharon's coalition government) called Arabs 
"snakes," "vipers" and "damned evils" who, "have to be bombed by 
missiles and exterminated."

Sharon's former minister of tourism, Rehavam Zeevi, referred to 
Palestinians as "lice" and "cancer," and repeatedly called for their 
expulsion from the occupied territories.

Can you feel the love?

Ridha Saleh

Toronto

[END]