The distribution of anti-Israeli anti-Semitic hate propaganda continues throughout the Palestinian Authority (PA) –administered territories . Although both the electronic and printed PA-controlled media have lowered the tone of their hate propaganda under Abu Mazen, the Palestinian terrorist organizations (and other Palestinian elements) have found alternative methods for distributing its (often anti-Semitic) propaganda and inculcating incitement to hatred and violence among Palestinians. The PA has limited the diffusion of such messages by its official media, but does not take effective steps to stop it as part of its policy of not confronting the Palestinian terrorist organizations.

The following is a selection of hate propaganda (some of it imported from Saudi Arabia ) distributed in various ways throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip by the Palestinian terrorist organizations. They circumvent the PA's limitations through the use and exploitation of local radio stations, the Internet (used extensively by Hamas) and cartoons (the vicious cartoons of Hamas-affiliated Omaya Joha continue to appear in the official PA newspaper). They work through Hamas- and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)-affiliated “charitable societies,” and statements are made by senior terrorist organization leaders both within the PA and beyond its borders are then quoted in the Arab and international media and distributed as leaflets and flysheets.

Hebron 's radio station Al-Huriyyah (“liberty”) broadcasts local news and songs. Its director is Iman Na'im Ismail Qawasmeh , a Fatah/Tanzin activist. Recently it has broadcast programs and songs containing inflammatory material against Israel and the Jews.

For example, on November 17, 2005, during a program called The Struggle , the announcer repeatedly mentioned anti-Semitic libel familiar from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , claiming that the Jews intended to take over the world . They would do that, he said, by gaining control of the economic resources and financial institutions of various countries by killing their opponents. The operative conclusion to be drawn, he claimed as he finished, was for his listeners to boycott Israeli products , thus preventing the Jews from carrying out their plan.

On the same day, Al-Huriyyah broadcast songs calling for a jihad against Israel with lyrics such as “Do not fall asleep, jihad warrior, because justice never sleeps. Take your bullets with you and bring death .”

It should be noted that the local radio stations have become prominent as centers for disseminating hate propaganda and incitement to terrorism, enabling the Palestinian terrorist organizations to circumvent the limitations Abu Mazen has placed on PA establishment-controlled radio and television stations. In the Gaza Strip, for example, Hamas's Sawt Al-Aqsa and the PIJ's Sawt Al-Quds lead the field. ¹ The PA does not take effective measures to stop propaganda and incitement from being broadcast on the local stations, even though much of it is aimed at the PA itself. ²

The Tulkarm Charitable Society ( Lajnat Zakat Tulkarm ) was founded in 1981. Like all other such societies in the PA, it is licensed by the PA. However, in practice it is affiliated with Hamas and is a central component of the organization's civilian infrastructure ( da'wah ) in the Tulkarm district. For that reason it was outlawed by Israel in 2002. The society is headed by Husni Hassan Khawajah , a Hamas activist, and many of its activists are affiliated with Hamas. The dominant figure today is sheikh Khamis Bilal Yussuf Abu Safira , a Hamas activist who serves as the society's treasurer. ³

Documents taken from the society's offices during the current violent Palestinian-Israeli confrontation clearly show that alongside its social-religious-economic activities, it was part of Hamas's terrorism-supporting apparatus and that it deals with inciting Palestinians to terrorism and hatred of Israel . Detailed lists have been found in the society's offices, showing payments to the families of terrorist-operatives who died while carrying out attacks against Israel (shaheeds), including suicide bombing attacks, as well as inflammatory material encouraging the perpetration of terrorist attacks.

On September 27, 2005, dozens of audio cassettes were found in the offices of the Tulkarm Charitable Society bearing the title “The end of the Israelites.” Recorded was a lecture whose anti-Semitic roots were clearly radical Islamic. The cassettes, which were distributed during the era of Arafat, continue, in our assessment, to be disseminated throughout the PA-administered territories. They were produced by a company calling itself Islamic Mission Recordings (Tasjilat al-Risalah al-Islamiyyah). It produces video cassettes and organizes pilgrimages to Mecca , and belongs to the Hamas civilian infrastructure.

The taped anti-Semitic lecture, “ The end of the Israelites, ” was given by Dr. Bassam Nihad Ibrahim Jarrar . He is a radical Islamist and high-ranking Hamas activist in the Ramallah-al-Bireh district, and heads the Noon Center for Qur'anic Studies and Researches . ⁴ He is also one of Palestinian representatives to the Union of Good , an umbrella organization of more than 50 Islamic funds and foundations worldwide which channel funds into Hamas institutions in the PA-administered territories. In the past he was exiled to Lebanon (to Marj al-Zahour, 1992). In 1996 he published a book called The Disappearance of Israel in 2020 -- a Quranic Prophecy or a Numerical Coincidence . He was detained on September 25, 2005, by Israeli security forces.

Dr. Bassam Nihad Ibrahim Jarrar: disseminated anti-Semitic hate
propaganda in the PA-administered territories.

In “The end of the Israelites” Dr. Bassam Jarrar interprets the 17 th Surah of the Qur'an, Al-Israa (“The night journey”). It begins with a verse about Muhammad's night ride to the “farthest mosque [ al-masjid al-aqsa ],” which, according to Muslim interpretations, is Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem . ⁵ and discusses many verses relating to “the Israelites,” that is, the Jews. Bassam Jarrar's analysis of the Surah “shows” that the end of the Israelites is approaching. He also discusses what he calls “the corruption of the Jews” and the punishment they will receive because of it when the time comes. The corruption he refers to is, in his opinion, the collective corruption of the Jews as a society and country. According to Jarrar, a Jew is not someone whose mother were Jewish, but someone who has accepted the racist and corrupt principles which appear in the Talmud and the version of the Torah distorted by the Jews.

Because of their corruption, Jarrar claims, the Jews will receive Allah's harshest punishment. He says that the first time the Jews corrupted the land was after David's kingdom and therefore their state was destroyed and they were exiled from it. The second time they established a country was in 1948 but since the Jews are corrupt, their country is fated to be destroyed a second time, as decreed by Allah. On the cassette Jarrar states that the “elders of Zion ” wrote a book called The Victims of the Crematorium of Zion . He claims that according to it, the Jewish Agency refused to save 30,000 Jews from the crematoria in return for $50,000 claiming that women, children and the aged could not reach Israel . Jarrar states that one can learn the level of the Jews' moral turpitude from the book, since they were not willing to pay a dollar and a half [sic] to save their brothers.

A second audio cassette called “ An interpretation of the 50 th Surah of the Qur'an ” ⁶ was found in the offices of the Tulkarm Charitable Society. It was produced by two companies in Al-Madinah in Saudi Arabia and exported to the PA-administered territories (radical Islamic propaganda is exported from Saudi Arabia and distributed by Hamas's civilian infrastructure).

The recording deals with Judgment Day and warns what will happen to the faithful if they stray from the straight and narrow path. The Jews are referred to as “the sons of monkeys and pigs.” It should be noted that Islamic-based anti-Semitism deals to a great extent with the claim that the souls of the Jews transmigrated into the bodies of monkeys and pigs. In Islam they are both inferior animals, and identifying the Jews with them is meant to trigger automatic hatred for them and to justify doing them physical harm because they were not created in the image of God . ⁷

An audio tape cassette called “Invisible pages” ⁸

Another audio cassette found in the offices of the Tulkarm Charitable Society was entitled “Invisible pages.” It was recorded by a Riadh Saudi Arabia-based company called Tasjilat al-Taqwa Islamiyyah (“The Islamic Fear-of-God Recording Company”).

The cassette contained one lecture by sheikh ‘Ali bin ‘Abd al-Khalaq al-Karni , who urges his listeners to maintain modesty and another about the values of the Islamic faith, paradise, reward and punishment. At the end he states that history has proved that the Jews make a practice of deception . To give credence to his statement he says that during the fifth century after the hegira (during the 11 th century according to the Gregorian calendar) the Jews of Khaybar in Saudi Arabia ⁹ presented the Abbasid Caliph with a false document. They wanted to use it, claims ‘Ali al-Karni, to return to Khaybar, and were ready to take any steps to ensure success, but the forgery was discovered by a Muslim cleric. He concludes, “Allah will punish the infidels and the conspirators.”

‘Ali bin ‘Abd al-Khalaq al-Karni is well-known Saudi Arabian sheikh who distributes anti-Semitic hate propaganda. It should be noted that other ‘Ali bin ‘Abd al-Khalaq al-Karni audio cassettes were found in the offices of the Tulkarm Charitable Society. On one he says that Allah will get the Byzantines, the Persians and the Jews, belittled and humiliated, out of the Arabian peninsula ; on another he praises those who sacrificed their money and their blood for the sake of Allah.

Vicious anti-Semitic cartoons by Omaya Joha in the official Palestinian newspaper.

On November 18, 2005, a vicious anti-Semitic cartoon by Omaya Joha appeared in the PA's official newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda.

The cartoon shows an Israeli soldier with a Magen David (Star of David) on his helmet, his features those of a classic Der St ü rmer Jew. He is holding a bloody scythe, the symbol of the Grim Reaper, and stepping over a pool of blood marked “Iman al-Hams;” next to his head are an arrow and the word “innocent.” The cartoon refers to the acquittal of an IDF officer accused of repeatedly firing into the lifeless body of Iman al-Hams, a 13-year old Palestinian girl, and is the exploitation of a tragic event to spread hatred for Israel and the Jewish people .

Omaya Joha is a Palestinian cartoonist who enjoys great popularity among Palestinians and other Arabs. Politically, she is aligned with Hamas . Her husband, who died in a firefight with IDF soldiers in 2003, was a high-ranking Hamas terrorist-operative. ¹⁰ Under Arafat she drew vicious anti-Israeli cartoons, some of them clearly anti-Semitic. In an interview with Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda on November 12 she stated that the paper imposes no limitations on her, but in our assessment she has moderated her anti-Semitic tone somewhat.

Omaya Joha (Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, November 12, 2005)

A large amount of terrorism-inciting hate propaganda was found in the Tulkarm offices of a PIJ-affiliated prisoner support group called The Prisoner's Light ( mishkat al-asir ). ¹¹ The material preached the continuation of suicide bombing attacks and jihad against Israel , called “the cancerous entity,” and the Jews, called “the sons of monkeys and pigs.”

Terrorism-preaching CD authored by the PIJ's Jerusalem Battalions

On November 27, terrorism-inciting CDs were found in the Tulkarm offices of The Prisoner's Light. Among them were dozens of copies of one dealing with shaheeds (martyrs for the sake of Allah) of the Jerusalem Battalions (the terrorist-operative wing of the PIJ) were found in the Tulkarm offices of The Prisoner's Light. They included clips of the shaheeds' “wills,” Jerusalem Battalions training sessions and militant songs, all preaching terrorism and laced with radical Islamic and anti-Semitic motifs .

In the Tulkarm offices of The Prisoner's Light a pile of PIJ leaflets was found entitled “ The retreat from Gaza and the future of the resistance through jihad .” ¹² Written in response to the disengagement, it repeatedly stated that the Israeli “retreat” from the Gaza Strip was the result of “blows delivered by the jihad.” Therefore, the leaflet claimed, the jihad had to continue as a personal Muslim responsibility and as a binding religious dictate until the “true victory” had been achieved and the “cancerous entity” [i.e., Israel ] had been vanquished throughout “ Palestine .”

The leaflet made extensive use of radical Islamic terminology found in the speeches and writings of Osama bin Laden in reference to the struggle against “ the Crusader United States and its allies, most prominently the Jews .” It attacked the “shameful, treacherous régimes” in the Muslim and Arab world, presenting the Palestinian “struggle” as part of Islam's global jihad and giving as examples Iraq , Afghanistan and Chechnya .

A statement made by Ramadan Shalah , PIJ leader operating in Damascus , was spread throughout the Gaza Strip (apparently as a leaflet) by the PIJ . He praised the Iranian régime and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who “ spoke the truth ” when he said that “ Israel had to be wiped off the map .” Ramadan Shalah added, “and that will come to pass, with the help of Allah” ¹³ (Ma'a News Agency, November 15, 2005). He also called upon Muslims to unite to defend Syria in the face of pressure from the international community, headed by the United States and Israel ( ibid ).

Munir al-Makdah, who heads the Fatah militia in Lebanon , ¹⁴ also praised the Iranian president's statement and the suicide bombers who are, in his words, “motivated by hatred.”

In an interview given on November 23 to Gianni Perelli, who writes for the Italian weekly L'Espresso, ¹⁵ Munir al-Makdah said the following:

•  With regard to the Iranian president's call to wipe Israel off the map, ¹⁶ he said that he supported the statement that Israel had no right to exist and added, “ the Iranian president was right, Israel has never had the right to exist, it is an artificial entity and sooner or later we promise it will be wiped out .”

•  With regard to the terrorists who volunteer and their motives, he spoke at length, saying that “the suicide bombers are our nuclear weapons .” He told the interviewer that he had recently eaten dinner with a group of potential suicide bombers who had finished a training course during the final days of Ramadan [in all probability, at the Ayn Hilweh refugee camp]. He said they had no trouble in recruiting suicide bombers and that he had hundreds of volunteers, men and women. He said that all those who volunteered as suicide bombers were motivated by an irresistible hatred dictated by the Israeli occupation. “ We only teach them the techniques of blowing themselves up ,” he said. ¹⁷ Al-Makdah told the interviewer that foreign Al-Qaeda operatives were in the [Ayn Hilweh] refugee camp on their way to Iraq and had even participated in a military training course there, given by a different organization, although he would not name it. He said that the instructors had European citizenship, mostly French, British and Scandinavian.