So if it weren’t scary enough for the children to be told they have to go out and kill, PA educators teach them that “heroes” are willing to fearlessly die as martyrs.
Until now this messaging is not problematic, however, all that changes when the schoolbook presents the 10 people who PA educators promote as the role models Palestinian children should emulate. The list of Palestinian heroes includes no scientists, no doctors, no engineers, no singers, no athletes, nor any artists. There have been three Muslim Nobel Prize laureates in science and two in literature, but they are not on the list of Palestinian heroes.
Who are the Palestinian heroes then according to the PA schoolbook? They are 10 Muslim combatants from the first century of Islam through the 21st century. And possibly the worst name on this list of role models is terrorist mass-murderer Dalal Mughrabi. Mughrabi led a team of terrorists who hijacked a bus in 1978 and murdered 25 adults and 12 children. Among those she murdered when she threw a hand grenade inside the bus was a young Israeli woman Rebecca Hohman and her two sons: Ilan, aged three and Roi, aged six. Mughrabi, a child murderer, is the person Palestinian educators are telling children to see as their role model, someone “everyone wants to be like.” After naming the 10 heroes, the PA schoolbook stresses that there is no one better than these fighters: “These heroes are the crown of their nation, they are a symbol of its glory, they are the best of the best, the best of the noble people.” That’s not all that is horrific. Mughrabi was killed during her terrorist attack and others on the list were killed in battle. The PA schoolbook focuses on their deaths and glorifies their willingness to die: “They took their lives in their hands and threw them at the dangers, without losing their determination and without weakening and surrendering. Some of them died as martyrs, some of them died on the way to fulfilling their obligations, as heroes.” So if it weren’t scary enough for the children to be told they have to go out and kill, PA educators teach them that “heroes” are willing to fearlessly die as martyrs. The final sentence of the chapter they are taught what this means for them if they don’t want to adopt this heroic behavior: “Bravo to the heroes, and scorn to the cowards!” Tragically, presenting Dalal Mughrabi as a hero and role model is not accidental or in isolation but is part of a broad almost cult-like worship of Mughrabi directed by the Palestinian Authority.
