“Auschwitz was built not with stones, but words"
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Make water for life, (W4L), not words for war
Prepared by
Professor Elihu D Richter MD MPH
Dr. Yael Stein MD
Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine
Genocide Prevention Program
Jerusalem Israel
May 2011
Note: This document is based on a position paper submitted to the Prime Minister’s Office of the Government of Israel. There was no funding from governmental or private sources.
The opinions are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect their organizational affiliation, nor are do they necessarily reflect those of sites on which it is posted. Posting this document does not necessarily mean that agreement with all the opinions presented.
Key Excerpts
Currently, there is an asymmetry between Israel's quest for peace, safety and security as a Jewish state and varying degrees of Muslim rejectionism. Israel's goal is full acceptance of its existence, security, safety as a State and respect for its right to sovereignty as a Jewish State. Israel seeks the kind of normal relationships that prevail between the US and Canada, and between the EU countries. No Muslim country, including those which are Israel’s neighbors, promotes education for peace with Israel, based on mutual respect between countries and their populations. Within the Islamic world, there is a spectrum of positions ranging from acceptance of a cold peace to a state of cease fire to encouraging genocidal terror and genocide...
…The failure to end Incitement and Hate Language and to promote peace based on mutual respect between the Arab and wider Islamic world and Israel and world Jewry is the core problem underlying the so-called Mid East conflict.
….If there will be economic peace and formal agreements on the so-called core issues — (Borders, Security, Refugees, Settlements, Jerusalem and Water), past evidence suggests that peace will not be sustainable without dealing with the real core issue: an end to Hate Language and Incitement and promotion of positive measures of respect and dignity for all. In any case without an end to Hate Language and Incitement, it will not be possible to reach agreements on the above. If, in coming years, there will be an end to Hate Language and Incitement, even without an agreement now The possibility remains there will be a stronger environment for a more sustainable win-win agreements...
Promoting positive messages, Respect for Life (R4L) and Human Dignity (HD) and Live and Let Live (L&LL) are central to a culture of peace. Positive Deviance—imitating the best, not the worst - will augment the campaign against incitement. Such a commitment means the need to upgrade current commercial and economic exchanges and agreements –i.e. "economic peace", into a broader vision of promoting a culture of peace that gives priority to regional win-win strategies for Water for Life (W4L), regional approaches to disaster prevention and response, and promotion of sustainable strategies for regional development.
…..The lesson of the past decades is that leaders say what they mean and mean what they say to their people, and that these messages shape norms and expectations which themselves define the boundaries of what the leaders themselves can or cannot do. It is what the leaders do to end Incitement and Hate Language in all forms, in the media, texts, religious places of worship, street signs and road maps, and diplomatic statements -- and not what they say in closed meetings to other diplomats -- that has to be the measure of action. Equally important is what they do to promote positive messages of peace, respect for life and human dignity, and live and let live. State sanctioned Hate Language and Incitement increases risk for genocidal terror and violence. Now, the situation has been made worse by internet incitement.
An end to Incitement and Hate Language is an absolute precondition for any agreement. Without it, there may never be any sustainable agreement. The negotiations will either succeed, or fail in producing the first steps towards a sustainable agreement or produce some kind of interim stalemate without war, terror, or violence. The bottom line measure of success or failure is the number of terror episodes and their victims. The airwaves TV screens and internet are now Israel’s major battlefront.
The failure of negotiators and mediators to recognize the enduring impacts of intergenerational transmission of hatred on the young is the most astounding fact concerning the Mideast conflict. What is even more astounding is the failure to take action to counter this intergenerational hatred. We propose region-wide strategies for intervention to prevent Hate Language and Incitement, based on public health models of predict and prevent. These strategies are based on epidemiologic surveillance for the warning signs of genocidal Jihadist terror and conflict. These strategies can be used to trigger interventions grounded in international laws to prevent and punish incitement to genocide.
Can there be Peace without Stopping Incitement and Hate Language?
1. Introduction
We are committed to life and respect for life and human dignity of all. We would like to see peace in our region. Like many other Israelis, we have been bit players in projects to promote cooperation in things that promote life and live and let live. This commitment comes from our identity as human beings, Jews, and Zionists.
As we wrote this document, one of us was in touch with the survivor of a terror stabbing attack against two women in the parks just outside Ness Harim, a beautiful scenic area outside of Jerusalem. She was Jewish, her friend Christian, and her Hadassah surgeon was Arab. As Israelis, we have been mugged by reality: Since the Oslo accords, territorial withdrawals—from the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon were followed by terror. Now there is a quiet of sorts, and there are calls for negotiations on the so-called core issues. Around us, the Mideast is convulsing.
As an epidemiologist and a researcher working in public health, this belief has driven us to examine the role of incitement and Hate Language, not only in our region, but elsewhere, in predicting and promoting conflict, terror, mass atrocities, war and genocide.
We address the question: Can there be a sustainable, durable peace agreement (i.e. an end to threats of terror, massacres, atrocity crimes, and war without an end to region-wide state sanctioned Hate Language and Incitement? Our comments below are based on prior knowledge from scholars of genocide and our own work in applying the tools of epidemiology for prediction and prevention of all of the above. Our premise, which should be self-evident, is that words and images are used to shape beliefs, norms, behaviors, and attitudes towards the most fundamental questions of life. Leaders use Words to bring people together or drive them apart. Words can heal or can kill.
Those who are working for a durable peace agreements between the wider Islamic world and Israel need to have an elementary knowledge of Incitement and Hate Language, their impacts, and the degree to which, in our opinion, they undermine the possibility of any enduring agreement that is worth more than the paper it is written on.
We have been particularly interested in using public health models of the spread of epidemic conditions to address the following questions. What are the modes of spread of incitement? What are the effects of population-wide exposure to incitement (“the mean determines the range”) in authoritarian, hierarchical and coercive environments from the top down? What are the effects on high risk vulnerable subgroups and individuals, (e.g. children and young males)? Are there so called herd effects driven by the extreme (“the extreme determines the mean”)? How long does it take to incite groups to hate and to turn to violence (What are the latency periods)? Are there resistant individuals and groups? We have also looked at inter-generational transmission, new internet driven social networks in catalyzing immediate “viral” spread of incitement, positive and negative deviance and the effectiveness and limitations of interventions.
Architects and perpetrators use the Six D’s -- Dehumanization, Demonization, Delegitimization, Double standards, Defamation and Disinformation (the 6 Ds) to recruit, instruct, order and direct followers and desensitize bystanders. During the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st, perpetrators have used state sponsored Incitement and Hate Language to promote conflict, genocidal terror and genocide. Furthermore, scholars have also noted that a seventh D, Denial of Past Genocides, itself forecasts current intimidation and threats to past victims.
2. State sanctioned Incitement and Hate Language: Why it is important?
State sanctioned Incitement and Hate Language is important because it signifies intent, directs, coerces, instructs, orders, and transmits inter-generational messages from figures of authority and power. It predicts and promotes agendas for tension, discrimination, persecution, intimidation, terror, and conflict. Incitement and Hate Language is “out there”, accessible, definable and measurable. It distorts and warps knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of the young. The fact that the young are more vulnerable to the motifs of Hate Language—in texts, media, cues, street signs, public art and media ensures inter-generational transmission, as has been the case in our region for some 70 years. It provides the ecology for such inter-generational transmission and radicalization of the young.
State sanctioned Incitement and Hate Language contravenes the spirit and the letter of violates International Law, notably the UN Convention on Prevention of Genocide and its Punishment, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Therefore it is preventable and prosecutable.
Humanism and religion both proclaim a commitment to life and respect for life. State sanctioned Incitement and Hate Language undermine messages of life, respect for life, dignity of the other and live and let live. It does not acknowledge that the "other" has these rights.
Currently, there is an asymmetry between Israel's quest for peace, safety and security as a Jewish state and the varying degrees of Muslim rejectionism. Israel's goal is full acceptance of its existence, security, safety as a state and respect for its right to sovereignty as a Jewish state, Israel seeks the kind of normal relationships that prevail between the US and Canada, and between EU countries. Neither the US nor Canada incite against each other, nor do the EU countries. Neither France nor the UK incite against Germany despite horrors of World War II. But no Muslim country promotes education for peace with Israel based on mutual respect between countries and their populations. Within the Arab world, there are a spectrum of positions ranging from acceptance of a cold peace to encouraging genocidal terror and genocide. This scenario of rejection serves as a powerful disincentive to any Israeli willingness to explore so called compromises for peace. Israelis, when exposed to the incitement endemic in the Arab world, ask: do our neighbors want two states, or two stages?
The burden of proof is on those who believe the former is true.
Our thesis is that failure to end Incitement and Hate Language and to promote peace based on mutual respect between the Arab world, Israel and world Jewry is the core problem underlying the so-called mid east conflict. An end to such incitement of all kinds is the event signaling the tectonic shift that must take place before there can be a discussion of all the other so-called core issues.
Muslim rejectionism comes in varying doses and packages. It preceded the establishment of the State of Israel, and is driven by centuries old Jihadist anti-semitic motifs.
Iran explicitly incites to genocide, exports terror to Hamas and Hezbollah, and pursues nuclearization. It is the epicenter of the world wide axis of jihadist genocidal anti-semitic incitement, using rhetoric identical to that in Mein Kampf.
Syria and Lebanon cooperate with Iran's support for surrogate terror groups, even if both are ready for a status quo kind of cease fire.
Saudi Arabia funds and propagates Hate Language and Incitement everywhere, even though it and Israel share a common interest in the status quo, stability, stopping Iran and Hezbollah.
Egypt and Jordan have a functional cold peace with Israel, with diplomatic relations, trade, open borders, but neither actively promotes peace, and Egypt's armed forces train for war against Israel. In both, there are restive Islamist groups agitating against Israel. Egypt is now at a tipping point, and there are signs are that its Revolution could turn foul, and it could become an ally of Iran's orbit.
Iraq, currently putting itself back together, could go in the direction of Egypt and Jordan.
The PA has not abandoned its role at the forefront of worldwide campaigns to demonize and delegitimize Israel, with so called visible and invisible delegitimization – and even more so now that Hamas and Fatah have formed a coalition government.
Visible delegitimization by my Muslim states all around the Middle East includes statements explicitly condemning or denying Israel’s right to exist. The PA still aggressively demonizes and delegitimizes Israel and Israelis in diplomatic forums. It continues to memorialize perpetrators of vicious terror attacks against Israeli civilians. Such delegitimization is “out there” and easy to track. See Appendix --- for examples of delegitimization and other types of incitement against Israel and Jews, in media and textbooks.
Invisible delegitimization--- an insidious form of incitement-- means simply ignoring Israel’s existence in maps and texts, ignoring the history and historical places of the Jewish people, excluding Jews from statements promoting religious tolerance, and the like. Tourist brochures and maps still delegitimize Israel and its Jewish population by not acknowledging Israel’s existence as a democratic Jewish state or the existence of Israelis as normal human beings. PA texts, PR material, brochures, and diplomatic statements delegitimize Israel invisibly, by ignoring its existence.
Invisible delegitimization is both "there" and "not there", and therefore it more often than not is easily missed. For those tracking incitement, it is all too easy to overlook the presence of such delegitimization precisely because it is invisible.
Within the PA: both Fatah and Hamas propagate motifs of disinformation and misinformation to reinforce negative motifs against Israel worldwide.
Fatah claims it is resigned to accepting Israel as an established fact. But the weight of the evidence is that Fatah clings to the goal and strategy of two stages, not two states (i.e. first a Palestinian State alongside Israel, serving as a step towards taking apart Israel as a Jewish state at a later stage). It does not explicitly repudiate terror and violence as being morally wrong, but, since the defeats of the second Intifada terror attacks and the death of Arafat, eschews the path of violence for pragmatic reasons.
Hamas, with deep roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, is now an Iranian surrogate. It rejects Israel as an established fact, rejects negotiations with it, and supports what it calls armed struggle or resistance as a matter of religious principle. Hamas' motifs are virulently Jihadist anti-Semitic and genocidal. Its attack on the US for the killing of Osama Bin Laden is in keeping with its traditions.
3. "Economic Peace"—can it bring an end to the conflict?
There are those who pose an alternative claim to our position - that an end to incitement and Hate Language is the essential precondition for agreement on all the other issues. The alternative view is that Peace and Live and Let Live will come from promoting what is called “economic peace”—if you can’t change hearts and minds, then produce prosperity by aid, economic development and trade. Advancing economic peace is based on the common sense notion that where there is plenty of wealth, bellies are full business is good, people are buying and selling, and there is plenty of money for food and goods, most people will have no time for terror and war, no matter what they are hearing, seeing, reading or listening to. But is economic prosperity by itself a guarantor or promoter of peace?
Turkey's recent steady drift away from being friendly towards Israel refutes the notion that economic prosperity and trade alone will automatically lead to the disappearance of hostility. Under its Islamist leadership, Turkey’s drift into an Islamist posture is occurring despite an enormous economic boom and business as usual with Israel. Turkey is an example of a country in which an aggressive leadership determined to create an atmosphere of hostility has been successful in displacing a feeling of good will and good feelings created by win-win economics. Government-condoned TV broadcasts recycling old blood libels were the warning signs of impending trouble.
The PA still incites despite the fact that Israel is its biggest trading partner, in both directions. In short, state incitement can undermine the stabilizing effects of economic peace.
Were economic peace the automatic gateway to ending the conflict then all those who are wealthy and powerful in our region would be strong participants in the peace process. But Iran and Saudi Arabia are the major propagators of Hate Language and Incitement.
The "economic peace" claim does not take into account what happens when wealth does not reach the pockets of the public—especially the poor. We suggest that wealth and corruption can lead to scapegoating. Nor does this claim take into account a situation in which the fathers have jobs and money and the sons are exposed to incitement, either from the top down, or now, directly via the web, as has been the case with many recent terrorists. It does not take into account scenarios such as Gaza, where young men receive food subsidies, but do not have meaningful work. We suggest that the poor may not always produce leaders of terror movements, but their young, if exposed to incitement, will provide foot soldiers for violence and terror.
We suggest that generally an environment of incitement drags the mean level of risk for terror towards the extreme, especially in young men. Osama Bin Laden and Ahmad Sheikh (the murderer of Daniel Pearl) were fabulously wealthy, but their wealth did not immunize them from the effects of endemic state sponsored incitement in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Most of the 9/11 participants came from comfortable backgrounds. On the contrary, their wealth gave them the means to act out the genocidal motifs they were exposed to in their mosques and schools.
Hassan Nidal – the US doctor who was economically secure — and the Nigerian "underwear bomber"--the son of a wealthy banker--- received their exposures to the Yemeni-American preacher via the internet and mosques. Osama Bin Laden and Ahmad Sheikh are examples of leaders who use role modeling, terror and murder to coerce and intimidate others.
The influence on these men from exposure to a high endemic population wide level of hate in their environments is an example of the mean determining the extreme.
The influence of these men on others is an example of the extreme dragging the mean.
4. Incitement:
a. Prior Knowledge from Genocide Scholars
We have published a review of the role of state sanctioned Incitement and Hate Language, which shows their central role in triggering, promoting and catalyzing risks for terror and atrocity crimes, genocidal massacres and genocide itself (1). Studies of past genocides, severe political conflicts and mass atrocities indicate that the relationship is highly predictive, even if it is not totally deterministic (Not all smokers get lung cancer, and not all patients with lung cancer smoked, but smokers have a greater than 10 fold risk than non-smokers).
What holds true for the relationship between incitement and genocide applies to far less extreme scenarios, starting all the way from cold peace to political hostility to low intensity conflict, as occurs with Pakistan posture's towards India, and war-like hostility, as with North Korea's actions towards the Republic of Korea. Such incitement is needed to motivate and recruit followers, to hold supporters and to desensitize bystanders. Our colleague, Dr Yaakov Michael, has suggested that such incitement is part of a more complex model of risk for conflict (see model).
Appendices 1-3: Range of scenarios from Peace and mutual respect to Genocide & range. The multi-dimensional model for predicted outcomes. Range / dimensions of Incitement.
b. Modes of Transmission: Top-down and Viral Spread:
Up through the 1990’s, the sources of exposures were mainly single point sources — e.g. powerful radio and TV stations (e.g. Rwanda, Kosovo), or mosques, or newspapers, and the dissemination was from the top down from these single sources. Now the internet, tiny websites and SMS propagate immediate global viral spread — as we have seen in Kenya. In Kosovo, NATO stopped incitement by bombing the Serb TV Station. In Rwanda, the genocide could possibly have been stopped at its onset, with several hundred troops and bombing the most popular radio station. In the era of viral spread via internet and cellphone messaging, it may no longer be sufficient to bomb radio and TV Stations to stop the incitement – but stopping this primary route of spread is still the necessary first step.
c. Viral Spread of Hate via the Internet
Today, the entire population of the mid-east—and now Pakistan and Turkey, as well as migrants elsewhere - are at risk from the toxic effects of exposure to Hate Language via viral spread through the internet. Such spread offers states and other official bodies the pretext of plausible deniability of responsibility. Furthermore, terror groups are now using mainstream social networks such as "facebook" to send their message out to the general public and recruit new members (2).
We suggest that the role of social networking via the internet in creating new norms shifts the mean further away from Live and Let Live.
d. Children and intergenerational effects of Hate Language and Incitement
Children are those most vulnerable to the effects of all toxins, including the toxic messages of incitement. Inter-generational transmission of hate messages led to antisemitic motifs becoming embedded in everyday Middle East political and social culture. Burdman has summarized the effects of incitement of children living in authoritarian societies and family structures, in patterning their long term attitudes and future susceptibility to becoming suicide bombers (3).
There are many examples of inter-generational transmission of messages of incitement, threats and intimidation resulting in massacres perpetrated against vulnerable minorities, and recurrent condoning of Genocidal motifs.
After the Genocides perpetrated against Christian Armenian, Greek and Assyrian minorities in the region by the disintegrating Ottoman Empire (1914-1917) and successor regimes, there have been repeated episodes of mass killing of these minority groups. In 1956 there was a pogrom in Istanbul, resulting in the flight of its large Greek community.
Currently, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has again become more threatening, not only to Israel, but to Kurdish and Armenian minorities.
Today, Arab political leaders have exploited the Jihadist genocidal Antisemitic Incitement of the 1920’s and 1930’s, using dehumanizing demonizing metaphors and motifs from ancient classic Islamic texts (Bostom)(4) which Nazi propaganda cleverly exploited (Fishman, Kuntzel)(5, 6). Today, with ever increasing economic wealth in the Arab world, we see a resurgence of these Anti-Semitic Islamist motifs. These motifs have been successful in promoting intergenerational transmission of its messages of dehumanization, demonization, and delegitimization through some 4 to 5 generations. Iranian state sanctioned Incitement and Hate Language and the coercive effects of increased repression have ensured intergenerational transmission for some 30 years—i.e. more than a generation, or 2.5 times, the life span of the Nazi regime, from 1933 to 1945, a mere 12 years.
Intergenerational transmission of Hate Language and incitement ensures the durability of the demonizing and dehumanizing motifs of Anti-Semitism, now so deeply embedded in the Islamic world. Repetition creates an environment for desensitizing bystanders, and undermines attempts at conflict resolution based on mutual respect for human life and dignity and live and let live. “Our hatred for Israel is in our genes”—a statement from Syrian actress Amal ‘Arafa, testifies to the enduring effects of an environment in which Hate Language is both embedded and endemic (7).
5. The Region-Wide Scenario: Hate Language and Incitement in the Middle East – Excerpts from school textbooks and Media
Saudi Arabia school textbooks:
"The Jews are wickedness in its very essence" (8).
"Now it [Palestine] is occupied by the Jews, a people of treachery and betrayal, who have gathered there from every place: from Poland, Spain, America and elsewhere. Their end, by God's will, is perdition" (9).
Egyptian school Textbooks:
"The lesson’s goals -
It is desirable that at the end of the lesson the student will be able to:
• Define the reasons for the war between the Muslims and the Jews of the Qaynuqa’ tribe.
• Mention some of the Jews’ blameworthy characteristics." (10)
"The description of the Jews in the Qur’an is an eternal miracle [in itself], since it described them by the traits to which they have adhered throughout all their generations, such as stubbornness, material greed, slander, hypocrisy, plotting against Islam and the Muslims, and waging a war which is multifarious in its methods and manifestations and one in its true nature and goal." (11)
"The Protected People [Ahl al-Dhimmah] shall not go out with them [i.e., with the Muslims, for prayer for rain outside the city]… because the gathering of infidels is expected to bring forth a [divine] curse." (12)
"[One] of the rules derived by the [Muslim religious] scholars from these [Qur’anic] verses is the following:
1. Obligation to fight the infidels with utmost vigor and power until
they become weak, their state disappears and they submit to the rule of the law of Islam." (13)
Egyptian TV:
Renowned Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass, on Egyptian TV: "Jews Control the Entire World" (14)
Interviewer: "So [the Jews] were dispersed in 133 C.E.?"
Zahi Hawass: "That's right."
Interviewer: "And they didn't reunite until 1900?"
Zahi Hawass: "Exactly."
Interviewer: "So they were dispersed for 18 centuries?"
Zahi Hawass: "For 18 centuries, they were dispersed throughout the world. They went to America and took control of its economy. They have a plan. Although they are few in number, they control the entire world."
Egyptian Cleric Ahmad 'Eid Mihna on Egyptian TV: "The Jews Are Behind Misery, Hardship, Usury, and Whorehouses" (15)
Palestinian Authority school Textbooks:
Israel is portrayed as a power that harms its immediate environment, as enumerated in a list of more than twenty-five crimes, beginning with its very establishment, through the occupation of Palestine both in 1948 and 1967, expulsion of the Palestinian people, oppression of those under its control, aggression against neighboring Arab states, massacre of Palestinians, assassination of Palestinian leaders, destruction of the Palestinian economy, house demolition, stealing Palestinian land and water, breaking of Palestinian
territorial unity, attempts at obliterating Palestinian national identity and heritage, usurpation or desecration of Palestinian Christian and Muslim holy places, and finally, Israel’s responsibility for social ills such as drug addiction in Palestinian society, the meager participation of Palestinian women in economic activity, family violence, etc. (16)
The Zionist movement is presented as a racist movement connected with Western imperialism. (17)
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a czarist Russian fabrication from the early twentieth century, is presented in a PA history textbook for grade 10 as the secret resolutions of the First Zionist Congress. The text reads: “There is a group of confidential resolutions adopted by the Congress and known by the name The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the goal of which was world domination. They were brought to light by Sergey
Nilos and translated into Arabic by Muhammad Khalifah Al-Tunisi. (18)
Following worldwide protests, the PA issued a revised edition of this book, but for a long time there was no indication that the old copies had been removed from schools and stores. The 2007 revised book does not include references to the Protocols.
"Your enemies killed your children, split open your women’s bellies, held your revered elderly men by the beard, and led them to the death pits."
This text was written by the Egyptian writer Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti, who died in 1924. It was not originally directed against the Jews, but its inclusion in a Palestinian textbook of today clearly has a demonizing effect regarding Jews. (19)
Palestinian TV:
New Antisemitic Animated Film on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV Vilifies Palestinian Authority: PA Security Forces Help Stereotypical Blood-Drinking Jews (20)
Settler Massacres Palestinians to Drink Their Blood, and is Welcomed by PA Officer
Father: "Son, the five most delicious things in the world are three..."
Settler: "I know."
Settler and his father: "Palestinian blood."
Father: "Go, son. Drink their blood, and come back safely."
Settler: "I will do it for you, father."
Father: "This is a map of Hebron. Take it. You may need it."
Settler: "I will not need it, because I am not Gilad [Shalit], and the West Bank is not Gaza. Calm down. Shalom, father."
The bear puppet host, Nassur, of a Hamas children's TV program, and Saraa Barhoum, 11 year old Child Star: (21)
[Seven year-old Palestinian child on phone tells how his father, a member of the Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades, “died as a Shahid (Martyr).”]
Nassur to child on phone: “What do you want to do to the Jews who shot your father?”
Child on phone: “I want to kill them.”
Saraa: “We don't want to do anything to them, just expel them from our land.”
Nassur: “We want to slaughter (Nidbah-hom) them, so they will be expelled from our land, right?”
Saraa: “Yes. That's right. We will expel them from our land using all means.”
Nassur: “And if they don't want [to go] peacefully, by words or talking, we’ll have to [do it] by slaughter.” (Shaht)
Turkish TV:
New television drama depicts Israel Defense Forces soldiers as brutal murderers.
The show, called "Ayrilik", features a love story that develops between the lead characters during Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media reports.
A partial episode available on YouTube depicts multiple images of the IDF brutalizing the Palestinian population by shooting children in the chest and kicking elderly people on the ground, among other things.
The Turkish Web site of TRT includes a brief explanation of the series and announces that the production is “a heartfelt display of the events in Palestine, which was occupied in 1948.” The series, the website said, “portrays the sorrow of women and children, in particular, and gives a voice to the suffering of mothers whose children and husbands were slaughtered.” (22, 23, 24)
6. The Israel-PA Scenario
a. Israel and the PA:
Following the Oslo Accords in 1993, the US and the EU poured billions of dollars in foreign aid into the PA, with no strings attached. After Arafat’s return, the PA reintroduced inciting Jordanian texts to replace texts cleared by Israel, and broadcast vitriolic incitement on its radio and TV stations, sanctioned the same in mosques, and in parallel, used diplomatic forums — the UN and its various committees, to broadcast messages of dehumanization, demonization, delegitimization, disinformation, defamation and Holocaust denial. The delegitimization was both explicit, i.e. explicitly challenging Israel’s right to exist, and invisible, i.e. taking the form of ignoring Israel’s existence in texts, maps and statements. To make things worse, corruption and waste –created a climate conducive to scapegoating Israel for Arafat's colossal failures to establish the institutions of an emerging state and his brutal suppression of all those opposed to him. The fact that Arafat’s regime was not only corrupt, but authoritarian meant that the incitement was coercive, directing and intimidating. Today, the current regime in the PA remains heavy-handed and corruption remains a major problem. The fact that much of the population remains traditionally religious, and religious motifs contain many strong anti-Semitic motifs, creates a cultural environment more receptive to motifs of Hate Language and incitement of traditional texts. Furthermore, the coercive religious framework does not allow young people to express themselves freely and think independently. The environment of incitement goes along with the environment of suppression of human rights.
There were only a few who predicted the catastrophic outcomes in the aftermath of the Oslo Accords. Following Oslo, there was a surge in deaths from terror despite a formal peace agreement and huge amounts of economic aid. There were no pressures to terminate incitement. Following the Second Intifada terror attacks, (Sept 2000), 1,133 Israelis and an estimated 5,144 Palestinians (including 952 children) were killed. By late 2002, Israel had crushed the second Intifada terror attacks, and in 2003 Arafat died after being kept in virtual captivity in his own headquarters. From Oslo onward, the PA continued its incitement, with Arafat in particular making many inflammatory speeches calling for Jihad and emancipation of all of Palestine, and the PA's radio and TV broadcast educational programs glorifying Shahidism. The PA continued its incitement - in texts, TV programs and mosques, but Israel’s heavy military presence ensured a relative degree of quiet.
Following Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, huge amounts of aid to Gaza have done nothing to stop the effects of incitement and the subsequent Hamas putsch. Hamas used Jihadist religious motifs for conveying messages of dehumanization and demonization. Its coercive control went hand in hand in with recruiting what have been called “surplus young males” living off of foreign aid. These men had little to no work, and many were easy prey for Hamas’ recruitment campaigns using jihadist religious motifs. These recruits launched thousands of rocket attacks on civilians in Israel and participated in terror attacks. Incessant Jihadist genocidal anti-semitic incitement was the sentinel early warning signs anticipating these attacks.
b. The Situation Today in the PA
Despite abundant economic aid, Hamas, which rules Gaza, remains an Islam fascist organization whose platform calls for the destruction of Israel and explicitly incites children to perform acts of terror, glorified as martyrdom. Hamas uses school texts, places of worship, children’s TV programs, and summer camps to recruit the young as child terrorists or soldiers and explicitly propagates dehumanizing motifs (25). The PA and Fatah, which are considered to be less extreme organizations, generate less explicit incitement, but use messages with subtexts which demonize and delegitimize (26). The PA has also decided to name streets after suicide terrorists. Recently there has been a trend away from direct dehumanization and instead the preachers use ugly epidemiologic metaphors and simple delegitimization.
7. Conclusion:
In conclusion, the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially in the last two decades, repudiates the validity of the hypothesis that “economic peace” can be relied upon to override risks for conflict which derive from the effects of incitement and Hate Language.
There is a simpler more direct type of evidence for the effects of incitement on group and individual norms and behavior: This is the evidence from Everyday Life. How many Israelis can wander freely and safely on Palestinian Streets? How many Palestinians feel free to openly meet with Israelis without fear of ostracism or physical threats?
If there will be economic peace and formal agreements on the so-called core issues — (Borders, Security, Refugees, Settlements, Jerusalem and Water), past evidence suggests that peace will not be sustainable without dealing with the real core issue: an end to Hate Language and Incitement against Jews and the State of Israel and promotion of positive measures of respect and dignity for all. In any case without an end to Hate Language and Incitement, it will not be possible to reach agreements on the above. If, in coming years, there will be an end to Hate Language and Incitement, the possibility remains there will be a stronger environment for a more sustainable win-win agreements. So whatever the future will bring, it will be a better one for Israelis and Palestinians if there is an end to all forms of Hate Language and Incitement now.
It will be better still if there is a commitment to promoting positive messages of a culture of peace and promotion of what is called Positive Deviance—imitating the best, not the worst, Respect for Life (R4L) and Human Dignity (HD) and Live and Let Live (L&LL). Such a commitment means the need to upgrade current commercial and economic exchanges and agreements –i.e. "economic peace", into a broader vision of promoting a culture of peace that gives priority to regional win-win strategies for Water for Life (W4L), regional approaches to disaster prevention and response, and protection and promotion of sustainable strategies for regional development.
The lesson of the past decades is that leaders say what they mean and mean what they say—to their people, and that these messages shape norms and expectations which themselves define the boundaries of what the leaders themselves can do or not do. What the leaders do to end Incitement and Hate Language in all forms, in the media, texts, religious places of worship, street signs and road maps, and diplomatic statements -- and not what they say in enclosed meetings to other diplomats -- has to be the measure of action. The airwaves are now Israel’s major battlefront.
Equally important is what these leaders do to promote positive messages of peace, respect for life and human dignity of all, and live and let live. Now, the situation has been made worse by internet incitement, even without state sponsorship.
State sanctioned Hate Language and Incitement increases risk for violence and conflict. The failure of negotiators and mediators to recognize the enduring impacts of intergenerational transmission of hatred on the young is the most astounding fact concerning the Mideast conflict. What is even more astounding is the failure to take action to counter this intergenerational hatred. It is time to redefine this situation as unacceptable, in the same way that mid 19th century reformers decided, once for all, to introduce a city sewerage system of drainage to get rid of the sewage filling the streets of London for hundreds of years.
All the foregoing has direct bearing not only on Israel’s demands and negotiating position, and but no less important, for the role of well-meaning mediators.
We propose region-wide strategies for intervention to prevent Hate Language and Incitement, based on public health models of predict and prevent. These strategies based on epidemiologic surveillance for the warning signs of genocidal Jihadist terror and conflict to trigger interventions grounded in international laws to prevent and punish incitement to genocide.
Here is a suggested platform for those working for the substance of a sustained peace:
1. The leaders of the PA and Israel, and for that matter, the entire region, have to take responsibility for putting an end to all official incitement in all forms and all settings.
2. There is a need for a region-wide network of surveillance of hate language and incitement, from state sponsored or state protected sources (ministries, religious authorities, texts, schools, diplomatic representatives and media). An end to Palestinian incitement must be part of a region-wide end to incitement. All the countries in the region have to commit themselves to ending incitement. Demanding action to achieve this goal should not await action on all the other issues: Security, Borders, Refugees, Settlements, Jerusalem, and Water.
To those who believe not enough is being done to promote a negotiated settlement, we say: Without an end to incitement and Hate Language, there is no hope for a sustainable agreement on the so-called core issues.
If Words Kill, they can be put to Work to Promote Life.
END
Endnote:
Barry Rubin of GLORIA noted that Dr Imad Mustafa, a senior cleric at Al Azhar in Cairo has publicly come up with a new concept, one supposedly restricted to groups like al-Qaida: “Then there is another type of fighting against the non- Muslims known as offensive jihad... which is to pursue the infidels into their own land without any aggression [on their part]..” (27)
On the same day this statement came out, one of us participated in a school gathering of Israeli and Palestinian children in Abu Tor to promote live and let live in Jerusalem.
References:
(1) Richter Elihu D, Stein Yael, Barnea-Burnley Alex, Sherman Marc. Can we prevent Genocide by preventing Incitement? Case Western Reserve University. Kelvin Smith Library. November 2009.
http://hdl.handle.net/2186/ksl:riccan00/riccan00.pdf
(2) Winter J. Al Qaeda Looks to Make New 'Friends' - on Facebook. December 09, 2010. Fox News.com
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/09/facebook-friends-terror/
(3) Burdman D. Education, Indoctrination, and Incitement: Palestinian Children on their way to Martyrdom. Terrorism and Political Violence. 1556-1836. Volume 15. Issue 1. 2003.
(4) Bostom AG. The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History. Prometheus Books. April 2008 Reprint, 768pp
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(7) Syrian Actress Amal 'Arafa: Hatred of Israel is in Our Genes and Blood. Al-Hirwa TV. 4 October 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Os4pdjtZ0
(8) Saudi Arabia school textbook: "Language exercise, Facilitating the Rules of the Arabic Language", Grade 9, pt. 2 (1999) p. 24. IMPACT-SE, Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education. http://www.impact-se.org/docs/reports/SA/SA2003_ch5.pdf
(9) Saudi Arabia school textbook: "Dictation", Grade 8, pt. 1 (2000) p. 24. IMPACT-SE, Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education. http://www.impact-se.org/docs/reports/SA/SA2003_ch5.pdf
(10) Egyptian school textbook: "Islamic Religious Education", Grade 4, Part 1, (2002) pp. 32-34. IMPACT-SE, Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education.
(11) Egyptian school textbook: "Islamic Education", Grade 10, (2002) p. 39. IMPACT-SE, Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education.
(12) Egyptian school textbook: "Selections for the Explanation of [the Book of] “Selection” ", Grade 9 (2002), p. 103. IMPACT-SE, Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education.
(13) Egyptian school textbook: "Commentary on the Surahs of Muhammad, Al-Fath, Al-Hujurat and Qaf", Grade 11, (2002) p. 24. IMPACT-SE, Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education.
(14) Egyptian TV, MEMRI - The Middle East Media Research Institute. February 11, 2009.
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/4029.htm
(15) Egyptian Cleric Ahmad 'Eid Mihna: The Jews Are Behind Misery, Hardship, Usury, and Whorehouses. Egyptian TV. Inter Arab Relations. Video Clip. MEMRI - The Middle East Media Research Institute. http://www.memri.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/2409.htm
(16) See chapter on “Israel’s Image” in various CMIP reports on PA schoolbooks. http://www.edume.org
(17) Palestinian school textbook: "History of the Modern and Contemporary World", Grade 10 (2004), p. 63). IMPACT-SE, Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education. Available at: http://www.impact-se.org/docs/reports/PA/PA2008.pdf
(18) Palestinian school textbook: "History of the Modern and Contemporary World", Grade 10 (2004), p. 63. (Sergey Nilos was the Russian author of this notorious document, under the auspices of the czarist secret police.) IMPACT-SE, Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education. http://www.impact-se.org/docs/reports/PA/PA2008.pdf
(19) Palestinian school textbook: "Reading and Texts", Grade 8, Part 2 (2002), p. 16. IMPACT-SE, Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education. http://www.impact-se.org/docs/reports/PA/PA2008.pdf
(20) MEMRI - The Middle East Media Research Institute. Inter Arab Relations. January 4, 2010. http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/3877.htm
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(22) VIDEO / Israel rebukes Turkey over brutish TV portrayal of IDF. Haaretz. 1 January, 2009.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121061.html
(23) Turkish TV series angers Israel. BBC News. 15 October, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8308124.stm
(24) Israel Protests Turkish TV Series About Palestine. The New York Times. 15 October, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/world/middleeast/16israel.html
(25) Antisemitism on Egypt’s Al-Rahma TV. MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 2466. 30 July 2009. http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=subjects&Area=antisemitism&ID=SP246609
(26) Marcus, I. PA Libels, Lies, and Distortions. Palestinian Media Watch. http://www.pmw.org.il/
(27) Rubin Barry. Two Big Developments: Lebanon: Government Falls; Egypt/Islam: Jihad? We're Just Getting Started! The Rubin Report. January 14, 2011. http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/01/two-big-developments-lebanon-government.html
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http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1411
