Yet Obama and the Western intelligentsia in general keep on insisting that these “moderates” will agree to a negotiated settlement with Israel. “PA narrative: All of Israel is ‘occupied’ land,” by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, May 15:
One of the most important impediments to long term peace between Israel and the Palestinians is the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist – and its teaching, especially children, that all of Israel is “occupied” land. As Palestinian Media Watch has reported, part of Israel is said to have been “occupied” since 1948 during the “Nakba” or “catastrophe,” the term Palestinians use to delegitimize Israel’s establishment. The rest, the PA says, was occupied in 1967 during the Six-Day War. All of Israel’s existence is said to be an “occupation” and illegitimate.
A recent PA TV children’s program cited Israeli expropriation of land in the Galilee in 1976 as the source for Palestinian protests on what Palestinians call “Land Day.” The PA TV host referred to the Galilee, part of Israel since its establishment in 1948, as “occupied lands” and “land occupied after 1948”:
PA TV host: “On March 30, dear friends, in 1976, Israeli occupation forces confiscated a region – in other words, thousands of dunams of land in the Galilee (northern Israel), the occupied lands, that is, land occupied after 1948.”
[PA TV (Fatah), March 30, 2012]PA schoolbooks teach the same message that Israel since 1948 is an “occupation”:
“Colonialism: Palestine faced the British occupation after the First World War in 1917, and the Israeli occupation in 1948.”
[National Education, sixth grade, p. 16, PA schoolbook currently in use. http://www.pcdc.edu.ps/textbooks/watanyeh_G6.pdf – accessed March 11, 2012]Official PA TV children’s educational programs consistently present all of Israel as “occupied”:
PA TV host: “We’re on a trip in the 1948 lands. On our right is Baqa Al-Gharbiya (village in Israel) , the land [home] of many friends of our program. We’re on our way [to see] many beautiful areas so that you can get to know them and see how beautiful our land is, and how many beautiful places it has — beautiful villages and cities. We’re in the north of the occupied lands, the 1948 lands (Israel), on the Lebanese border.”
Israeli-Arab tour guide: “We’re now at the Golan Heights border (inside Israel). We are at the exact border between Palestine and Syria.”
[PA TV (Fatah), Sept. 17, 2011]…