As many as 25 Palestinian schools are named after terrorists, according to a recent report published by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) entitled Palestinian Authority (PA) Education: A Recipe for Hate and Terror. The report presents a concerning insight into the glorification of terrorists in the PA which indoctrinates Palestinian youth.
The report exposes how “the PA teaches its children to reject Israel’s right to exist, encourages them to view Jews as evil and directs them to embrace terrorist murderers as role models”.
With 25 Palestinian schools named after terrorists, a message is clearly sent to Palestinian children that murderers who target Israeli civilians should be honoured. Other schools are named after ‘martyrs’ and one is named after an associate of Hitler and a Nazi collaborator.
There are three schools in the PA named after terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, including the Dalal Mughrabi High School for Girls in Gaza and the Dalal Mughrabi Elementary School for Girls near Hebron. PMW reports that “terrorist Dalal Mughrabi led the most lethal terror attack in Israel’s history, known as the Coastal Road massacre, in 1978, when she and other Fatah terrorists hijacked a bus on Israel’s Coastal Highway, killing 37 civilians, 12 of them children, and wounding over 70”.
Three schools are named after terrorist Abu Jihad, who headed the PLO terror organisation’s military wing and planned attacks killing a total of 125 Israelis including many children. A further 20 schools are named after terrorists Shadia Abu Ghazaleh, Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad), Ahmed Yassin, Abu Ali Iyad among others, all responsible for numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians.
A student at the Shadia Abu Ghazaleh High School for Girls in Gaza stated in an interview with PA TV that “Shadia was a model for us and will remain a model for us and we’ll follow her path”. Abu Ghazaleh was involved in many terror attacks against Israel and was killed in 1968 when a bomb she was preparing for an attack in Tel Aviv accidentally detonated.
The report notes that the Palestinian Authority leadership “has publicly and internationally proclaimed a commitment to fight violence. Its pledge, however, can only be seen as insincere since it sends its children to be educated in schools named in honour of terrorists who murdered numerous Israeli civilians”.
PMW added: “Indeed, there is no greater or more fundamental statement of support for violence and terror than honouring and commemorating killers who intentionally targeted Israeli civilians. For peace to have a chance, terrorists who targeted and murdered civilians must be condemned and ostracised, not immortalised as heroes and role models by having institutions bear their name”.
