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PA Teaches Children to Die as Martyrs for 'Palestine'

By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Palestinian kids created as "fertilizer," to saturate the land with blood

Dying for the sake of "Palestine" as an ideal, even for Palestinian children and youth, remains part of Palestinian discourse.

This week, official Palestinian Authority TV reported from a Fatah celebration in a refugee camp in Lebanon and chose to focus on the following slide shown at the celebration. Fatah's message was that children are created so that their blood will be "fertilizer" to saturate the land: "Our children are our glory and honor, they were created to be fertilizer for the land of Palestine, and for our pure land to be saturated with their blood."

Earlier this month, a PA-Fatah celebration in Ramallah featured a performance with the same message. In front of senior PA leaders, including Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, young children and youth performed a song that included the following words: "My pure land, I shall saturate you with my blood... redeem you with my life."

Palestinian Media Watch has reported extensively on the PA's teaching of children to die as Martyrs for "Palestine." During the PA's terror campaign (the "Intifada," 2000-2005), the PA encouraged children to aspire for Martyrdom death as a central part of its message to children. Today, the message that children should die for "Palestine" is less prominent, but still found in PA schoolbooks and is expressed in cultural settings through song and dance.

During the terror campaign, PA TV videos presented martyrdom death for children as "sweet." One PA TV music video broadcast hundreds of times from 2001 to 2004, showed a young boy falling dead on the ground to the words: "How sweet is Shahada (Martyrdom), when I am embraced by you, my land!" As a result, children presented death for kids as "sweet" in TV interviews. In 2002, at the height of the terror campaign, an 11-year-old Palestinian girl said on PA TV: "Of course Shahada is sweet. We don't want this world, we want the Afterlife."

As a result of the many years of PA urging children to become Martyrs, Palestinian adults and children still see Martyrdom death as an ideal. Parents speak with honor of their "heroic" children who fell as Martyrs, and children talk of becoming Martyrs.

The following is the text displayed at a Fatah event in a refugee camp in Lebanon, shown on PA TV:

PA TV narrator: "In the refugee camp Ein Al-Hilwe [in Lebanon], a rally was held in celebration of the [47th] anniversary [of Fatah]. A political symposium was also held on the occasion of the event." Text on slide at event: "Our children are our honor and glory, they were created to be fertilizer for the land of Palestine, and for our pure land to be saturated with their blood" [PA TV (Fatah), Jan, 24, 2012]

The following is an excerpt of a song performed by children at an event marking the 47th anniversary of the Fatah movement. PA leaders applaud kids sing "I shall saturate you with my blood... redeem you with my life":

Present at the ceremony: Prime Minister Salam Fayyad; Secretary General of the Presidential Office, Al-Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim; Secretary of the PLO Executive Council, Yasser Abd Rabbo; District Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh Laila Ghannam; Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf.

Song by the Raji'in group (children and youth):

"How beautiful you are, my country The love in my heart for you is great You have brought up and educated generation after generation, You waited patiently and discovered your heroic children Oh, my pure land, I shall saturate you with my blood I shall live and die upon your green ground Your ground satiates us, your goodness satisfies us I shall redeem you with my life, oh my land Your embrace warms us Your ground satiates us, your goodness satisfies us I shall redeem you with my life, oh my land Your embrace warms us" (emphasis added)

Applause by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Secretary General of the President's office Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim and PLO Secretary General Yasser Abd Rabbo. [Live PBC broadcast from Ramallah, PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 5, 2012]