Accepting Violence Education and Expecting Peace: A Flawed Equation

Today, I had the opportunity to see some items captured by Israeli soldiers operating in Gaza. Among the weapons and Hamas artifacts, they found numerous family photos of children posing with their favorite weapons—RPGs, AK-47s, and the like.

Many of you might be surprised that Gazan families consider it completely normal to take pictures of their children alongside weapons, but I’m not. Having lived in Israel for most of my life, I’ve been exposed to information that rarely makes it to mainstream news channels in the United States or Europe. For instance, it’s well-known here that both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have been indoctrinating their youth for decades to hate and kill Jews.

As a quick aside, just to check if this was common practice elsewhere, I did a Google image search for “family pictures with kids.” Unsurprisingly, none of the results featured weapons.

Here’s the sad truth, one that has been known for decades yet largely ignored—even by many Israelis: Since Palestinian Arabs gained control over their own education systems, they have been poisoning the minds of their children. They teach that Jews have no right to exist, let alone have any connection to the land of Israel, and that Arabs should strive to kill as many Jews as possible.

Children’s books and textbooks distributed by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and by Hamas in Gaza glorify terrorists who kill Jews, depict them as heroes, and celebrate death through terrorism. These materials dehumanize Jews and present peace negotiations as merely a tactic to conquer the entire land while killing its Jewish inhabitants—often summarized by the slogan, “From the River to the Sea.”

This kind of violent, dehumanizing propaganda is not new among Arabs, whether under the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, or in neighboring countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. Given this, how can we expect generations of Palestinian Arabs and others in the region to embrace the idea of peace with Israel?

Western nations, along with Israel, need to remove their blindfolds. As long as antisemitic indoctrination persists, there will be no peace. Instead of focusing solely on ceasefires, the West should confront and combat those who spread hate, rather than dismiss it as just “another point of view.” This misguided, so-called “progressive” stance is what leads university presidents to make appalling statements like, “It depends on the context” when justifying their lack of response to antisemitism on campus.

Ilan Friedman

#viewsmyown