Tragedy upon tragedy is unfolding before our very eyes, with each day revealing horror upon horror. For the vast majority of us, it is presented through the filters of the media. Truth and error are contained within the tapestry that is presented to us.

Truth and error

For example, on the ITV evening news of Monday, 9th October, the presentation of the background to the conflict boldly stated that the region has been “known as Palestine for 2000 years”. This sounds OK, whilst clearly supporting the Palestinian narrative. However, it just isn’t true! ‘Palaestina’ was simply a Roman imposition following the Bar Kokhba rebellion. Prior to 132AD ‘Yehud’ and ‘Judaea’ were the principal terms, whilst in the days of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, from 1517 to 1917 the land was administered as part of Syria, the northern part in the ‘Sanjak of Beyrut’ and the southern in the ‘Sanjak of Kudus-i-Sharif’.

Another factor is the intermittent representation of the Gaza enclave as a ‘concentration camp’, an area confined by Israel, a people oppressed by Israel. This, too, is at best an oversimplification, but basically it’s a falsehood. According to Asharq Al-Awsat (a pan-Arab newspaper), in August 2012 Palestinian Authority spokesman Ahmad Assaf alleged there were 1,700 millionaires in Gaza.

Gaza as a ‘concentration camp’ is at best an oversimplification, but basically it’s a falsehood.

I wonder, have you ever seen Gaza’s luxury beachfront hotels? Trip Advisor tells us that the “Grand Palace Hotel is a luxurious hotel in Gaza City. The hotel has a wonderful structure with beautiful sea view and great facilities.' Then, there’s the Blue Beach Hotel, according to Trip Advisor, “a luxurious resort and one of the finest of its kind in Palestine."

Of Gaza’s Al Deira hotel, Wikipedia declares, “a beach hotel located in Gaza. It was built in 2000 and has 22 rooms which feature high, domed ceilings and views of the Mediterranean. The hotel is regularly used by foreign journalists covering Gaza.” The hotel has received a number of very positive reviews in Time magazine by British journalist, Alan Johnston Yes, you did read that – the BBC have first-hand experience of it, they will have paid Johnston’s expenses.

Child brainwashing

However, the major cause is missing from the media’s transmissions – Islamist supremacy and militancy. According to Hazem Balousha, a Gaza City journalist, “In the streets surrounding the Saraya neighbourhood in central Gaza City, boys are lined up in groups like military battalions, wearing paramilitary clothes and surrounded by supervisors in full uniform and carrying weapons, while loudspeakers chant fiery Hamas anthems calling for jihad.”¹

Nothing has changed. Such a policy is producing a constant stream of extreme religiously-motivated militants.

Working for UNICEF in 2005, Dr Anne Speckhard, Professor of Psychology at the Free University of Brussels, stated,

“In the Palestinian territories, there currently exists a ‘cult of martyrdom’. From a very young age children are socialized into a group consciousness that honours ‘martyrs’, including human bombers who have given their lives for the fight against what is perceived by Palestinians to be the unjust occupation of their lands. Young children are told stories of ‘martyrs’. Many young people wear necklaces venerating particular ‘martyrs’, posters decorate the walls of towns, and rock and music videos extol the virtues of bombers”.

Nothing has changed. Such a policy is producing a constant stream of extreme religiously-motivated militants.

Undiluted Jew hatred

The Hamas charter is explicitly warlike and uncompromising. Article 8 reiterates the Muslim Brotherhood's slogan of ‘Allah is its goal, the Prophet is the model, the Qur'an its constitution, jihad its path, and death for the sake of Allah its most sublime belief.’ Article 11 states that Palestine is sacred for all Muslims for all time, and it cannot be relinquished by anyone. Article 13 claims that there is no negotiated settlement possible. Jihad is the only answer. Article 15 includes the claim that "The day that enemies usurp part of Muslim land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim".

Article 13 claims that there is no negotiated settlement possible. Jihad is the only answer.

Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman, interviewed in 2014 about the prospects of a peace treaty with Israel, declared. “The talk is all Zionist baloney. Their dream is to live in peace and security for ten years, but we will continue to give the Zionists nightmares until the very last Zionist leaves our Palestinian land – all of Palestine, from the River to the Sea. Any tahdiah [lull] will be temporary for a set period of time. We are not talking about a long-term tahdiah or about a peace agreement. In the lexicon of the resistance, the word tahdiah means ‘preparation for the battles to come’ and …. the resistance will continue to develop, manufacture, and expand its arsenal of weapons… until the Zionist enemy leaves our land in its entirety.”²

Sermons preached during Friday prayers fuel the flames, some transmitted widely via TV. For example, on 13 October 2015, an Islamic cleric, Sheikh Iyad abu Funun declared:

• “I want to swear on the Quran that not a single Jew will remain on this land. Not a single settler will remain on this land. Absolutely not.”
  
• “We and you are on the same land, but we have our complete faith in Allah and in the strength of the mujahideen, and we will not leave a single one of you, alive or dead, on this land. By Allah, we will dig up your bones from the graves and get them out of this country. We will not leave any trace of you on this land.”³
  

Such rhetoric continues to this day.

The founder of the Free Palestine Movement, Yasser Qashlay, has repeatedly called Jews "dregs of European garbage", a "gang of criminal murderers", and "human pieces of filth”

What do Palestinians say is their territory? In words: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!” (i.e. from the Jordan to the Mediterranean).

Free Palestine Movement

The founder of the Free Palestine Movement, Yasser Qashlay, has repeatedly called Jews "dregs of European garbage", a "gang of criminal murderers", and "human pieces of filth” that should be deported to Europe. He has also stated that there is "no reason for coexistence" between Israelis and Palestinians, as the latter would reclaim their lands and "hunt them down to the end of the world and prosecute them for their massacres".

Such realities are what our media are not telling us. Such realities lie behind the awfulness of the current Palestinian actions in and from Gaza. They are devilish.

Endnotes
1. Al-Monitor, Palestine Pulse, 19 June 2014
2. Mayadeen TV (Lebanon), 16 July 2014
3. Excerpts from Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas-Gaza), translation by Palestinian Media Watch