How Hamas Fills Kids With Hate

Chloe Markowicz - Thursday 12th November 2009


A young Hamas supporter

Hamas indoctrinates children into believing Jews are "the descendents of apes and pigs" and that the Holocaust was a lie, according to a shocking report presented in the House of Commons yesterday.

The six-year investigation into the terrorist group's approach to children's education found that its propaganda threatens peace by encouraging hatred and violence.

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The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE), which presented the report, warned about the dangers of engaging with Hamas, due to the "true nature of what it represents, with its anti-Western stance and its anti-Semitic driven ideology fuelled with hatred and a lust for violence".

IMPACT-SE reviews educational curriculum in the Middle East to examine if they meet the standards set by UNESCO resolutions on education. Its report focused on the Hamas web magazine Al-Fatah, which it said violates international educational standards and the United Nations convention on the right of a child. IMPACT-SE added that Hamas's approach to education poses "real danger to British and European Muslim children" as the magazine has readers in the UK and Germany, among other countries.

The report revealed the magazine uses words and cartoons to indoctrinate children with hate and incite them to commit violence. This includes examples of anti-Semitism, with cartoons depicting Jews as mice and "evil aliens", and descriptions of Zionists as "the descendents of apes and pigs".

An April 2003 issue of Al-Fatah said: "These Jewish Zionists are criminals and cowards and are a like a cancer which has to be gotten rid of." The report also revealed Hamas encourages Holocaust denial, with a cartoon in the magazine depicting Jews saying the Holocaust is a lie.

IMPACT-SE found indications that Hamas promoted suicide bombing and encouraged children to be violent. One issue of the magazine told children not to grieve for the "martyrdom" of bombers and said martyrs did not feel any pain when they die.

Simon Barrett, the UK spokesman for IMACT-SE, said: "If we are to defeat international terrorism and stop young impressible Palestinian children from being recruited into a life of terrorism and violence the international community needs to do more to stop the indoctrination of the innocent."

Patrick Mercer, Conservative MP and Chairman of the Sub-committee on Counter-Terrorism which sponsored the briefing, said: "Children's minds are sacred. Objectivity is sacred. It is vital that we look at and understand this problem if the tangled fortunes of the Middle East are to be eased."

IMPACT-SE held its presentation in Parliament in conjunction with the prominent Muslim scholar Dr Muhammad al Hussaini and the Next Century Foundation, a charity dedicated to conflict resolution.

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