Amit, (not her real name) is a producer for the Israeli Educational Television channel. Though at opposite sides of the political spectrum we developed a congenial friendship during the two months I spent in Israel taking care of my mom. She reluctantly acknowledged that    M.A.T.C.K.H. - Mothers Against Teaching Children to Kill & Hate   had a valid position but she could not get beyond the feeling, so prevalent among the Tel Aviv intelligentsia, that if only we treated the Arabs more fairly all this vile propaganda and calls for Jihad would eventually disappear from their curriculum.

One day, we met on the elevator. "All this bloody unrest lately has been such a shock to our children. The peace process is being shattered in front of their eyes. I'm constantly having to come up with new story ideas" she said. I seized the moment. "How about telling them the one story that has yet to be fully told. And the present turmoil is perfect timing for it". I was referring, of course, to the education of the Arab Palestinian children, a story that we at MATCKH had been pitching for the past two years to anyone in the media who would listen, both in Israel and the US. Even the Israeli PR machine was finally distributing video samples of the virulent rhetoric at the latest "peace" conference in Sharem el Sheik. But now daily current events, all those rock-hurling children, were the perfect peg. 

"How about taking the picture of that 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Mohammed al Duri dying in his father's arms (Israel now claims that it was Palestinian bullets that killed the boy) - that picture that has been etched in the visual mind of every TV news viewer in the world, and putting a big question mark over it."

Who was this 12-year-old boy?
Who are his classmates?
Who are his teachers?
What did he learn every day in school?
What had he been taught since that day of the infamous handshake on the White House lawn in 1993, when 'peace' was introduced, when he was only 5 years old? Had he and his classmates been taught the value of peace, tolerance and coexistence? Or had they been the victims of a daily diet of virulent anti-Semitic Anti-Israeli rhetoric? Had they been eased into accepting us Jews as their permanent neighbors - here to stay? Or had they been subjected to regional maps depicting Israel as Palestine and to the call of Jihad against Israelis and Jews? 

Did anyone remember that this incitement material which had been cleansed from the syllabus after the l967 Six-Day War, had been purposely reinstated in the Arab Palestinian curriculum after the Oslo accord by the Arafat 'educational' machinery?

As a TV educator, my friend was very familiar with the efforts exerted by dovish Minister of Education Yossi Sarid to develop a pro-peace curriculum for the Israeli public schools under his jurisdiction. "Let us show the contrast between what our children are learning in their schools and what their Arab counterparts were being taught in theirs," I continued. "Let us expose the truth to our children, our people and the world. Let everyone see how much we want Peace. How far we are willing to go for it. How much we are willing to sacrifice for it and then let us contrast it with how this poor boy and his friends and the entire 800,000 children under Arafat's rule are being brainwashed to hate and kill Jews by their teachers and schools. After all who can remain cold to the story of child abuse - children being used to win points in the war for public opinion." I pointed out, appealing to her concern for Israel's image in the eyes of the world.

For a moment she seemed captivated. Had I made the sale? Could I have really touched her soul? She called over her associate, another producer from the same network and I showed them the material MATCKH had been collecting over the past few years. They seemed genuinely interested. They even started discussing various techniques of how to penetrate an Arab school to get the story. I could not believe my ears. And then she stopped. Amit became genuinely perturbed.

"But what is the message that we will be giving to our children? Are we are telling them that there can be no peace? Are we offering them no hope? No! There is no way we can do that!" she concluded.

"But what about the truth? I pleaded. "How about telling them the truth. Even the gentiles subscribe to that old adage: 'Know ye the truth and it shall set you free'. Why is it that we expose children to all the violenceand nudity on TV in the name of truth and realism but when it comes to this vital truth pertaining to their very survival we are suddenly so overprotective? Isn't there merit to informing children of the reality theywill eventually have to face when those brainwashed children grow up?  What is the point in giving them false hope? Wouldn't the Jews of Europe, both parents and children have been better off in the 1930's had they taken Mein Kampf and the Nazi Youth education more seriously?" I asked.

But I had lost them. Those two 'concerned' producers could not see past their own 'noble' agenda. They saw their task of providing hope as the ultimate goal and the fact that it was, false hope was not going to deter them from their appointed 'holy' mission. One would think that current events would have somewhat opened their eyes but alas it was not to be.  

But WE cannot give up!

 This is a story that has to be told and over and over again on every network. The images of Arab children chanting death to the Jews and embracing the role of suicide martyrs should become as familiar to CNN audiences as the dead boy Mohammed. The world media portrays us as this big Goliath shooting at innocent children who are just throwing stones. Let them find out who these children really are. There has to be a concerted effort to disseminate the information that Arab Palestinian children are being used as human shields, pawns in the public relations war against us. We have to generate outrage at their parents, the adults, for using their children so callously.

No matter how much restraint our soldiers exercise they are always portrayed as bullying aggressors. (My 19-year- old son who was visiting Israel from his Shlichus in Australia during the riots said to me as he was watching the latest news: "Ma I don't think I would ever want to live in Israel". "Why?" I asked astonished at this inappropriate reaction from an idealistic yeshiva bochur. "Because I can't imagine being a soldier in the Israeli army and being forbidden to react, to protect my people and my country,"he replied.)

Everyone from senator elect and child protegee Hillary Clinton of "It Takes a Village" , to universal childrens' patron UNICEF must be forced to publicly decry this travesty on every Today show and Oprah type program. Child psychologists and social workers who claim that once a child learns to react with violence it becomes an ingrained response mechanism and is irreversible, should appear on all the popular talk shows. We have to realize that the war is really being fought on the battlefield of public relations in the Western media and each one of us has to do our share to change that image in the eyes of the world. We have no better PR tool with which to present our case to the world than the travesty that is the Arab Palestinian educational system. Not even bleeding heart liberals can justify the systematic teaching of children to kill and hate.

Let us demand that this become the litmus test to any true peace initiative because there is no hope for peace unless the foundation for peace is instilled in the children - those same children who are now being sent out to throw stones at our soldiers so that when one of them accidentally gets killed he can serve the function of a TV photo-op in the war against the Jews.

 P.S.

IDF GENERAL: PALESTINIANS LIKELY KILLED 12-YR.-OLD BOY O.C. Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yom Tov Samiyeh said today that it is very likely that Palestinian bullets were those that killed 12-year-old Muhammed Al-Dura almost eight weeks ago. A video clip of his killing - filmed by a French journalist who happened to be there at the time - was broadcast all over the world, and Israel admitted then that its shots may have inadvertently killed the boy. Samiyeh, however, said that an in-depth investigation, including a re-enactment of the scene and computer simulations, show that the boy - who, for an as-yet unexplained reason, was caught in a crossfire - was most likely shot in the back by Palestinians.  An investigation by former IDF sniper Yosef Doriel found that the guilty Palestinians most likely stood behind the cameraman.  Pictures of the incident and possible explanations can be seen at: <"http://www.geocities.com/rachav/netzarim.html">.