The day campers are seen drawing maps of their “homes” – located in Israel – and pining for the day they will return. Most of the education provided for the children in these UNRWA camps has to do with jihad, the Arab “right of resistance,” and the “right of return” (even for Arabs who lived in Israel for only two years before Israel gained its independence; elsewhere around the world, the UN will consider only those who lived in a country for ten years a ‘refugee’ from it.)
Contrary to popular belief, the day-camp nationalism is more than just “nostalgia” and learning about “roots.” The Palestinian Authority, with its public ceremonies, day camps, and school curricula, is actually preparing a half-million children to “return to their villages with power and honor.” Together with the strongly anti-Semitic motifs often found in these messages, this is clearly preparation for war, not peace.
“Even the Vatican, which translated their school texts, has warned Israel that the PA texts are war books,” says PA-incitement expert David Bedein.
This issue is of such import that Prime Minister Netanyahu wrote to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the man responsible for the current round of talks, to remind him that PA chieftain Mahmoud Abbas responded to news of the peace talks by promising that “there will not be one Jew in the Palestinian state that will arise.”
It was not reported, but Netanyahu most likely asked Kerry, “Is this a way to prepare one’s countrymen for peace with a long-time enemy? Or is it more likely that peace with Israel is actually not the PA’s goal?”
To find out how you can help publicize the phenomenon of Arab incitement against Israel, the Jews, and Jerusalem, send an e-mail to [email protected] or visit the Keep Jerusalem-Im Eshkachech website at www.keepjerusalem.org.