Prism Group Report - Palestinian Children: What are they being taught?

What happens when a child's hero is a 21 year old who goes onto a bus and blows himself up, killing and maiming dozens around him? What can be the future for a region, a people, and in fact, the entire world, when children are taught to glorify terrorist acts? To answer these and similar questions, The Prism Group, an organization dedicated to investigating human rights issues in the Middle East, has just released a report entitled: Palestinian Children: What are they being taught?"

What happens when a child's hero is a 21 year old who goes onto a bus and blows himself up, killing and maiming dozens around him? What can be the future for a region, a people, and in fact, the entire world, when children are taught to glorify terrorist acts?

To answer these and similar questions, The Prism Group, an organization dedicated to investigating human rights issues in the Middle East, has just released a report entitled: Palestinian Children: What are they being taught?"

On April 30, 2003, the Quartet announced details of a Roadmap that is meant to bring a peaceful solution to the Middle East. An integral part of the implementation of the Roadmap is a call for incitement and the misuse of educational material to cease immediately.

Perhaps more than any other group in the world, the children of the Middle East are both the targets and the victims of this incitement from many levels of society. What they are taught and what they are encouraged to believe, will determine the future of the Middle East.

The Prism Group report concluded the following: -
1. Teaching materials and guidelines developed by the Palestinian Authority since 1993 are poor and in many cases inflammatory.
2. Palestinian children are increasingly exposed to a broad range of violent influences, including defamatory television material and summer camps designed to indoctrinate hatred.
3. International organizations such as the European Union and UNRWA, as well as individual donor countries have unwittingly funded educational materials designed to incite, summer camps designed to indoctrinate, and more.
4. Palestinian children have been cynically and consistently used as pawns to promote hatred of their Israeli neighbours. Not only is this a clear infringement on their human rights, it also raises the concern that peace can never take hold in the region.
5. And most frightening of all, clear evidence indicates that incitement effects are now spreading outside the Middle East, entering fringe communities in many Western countries.

The report is available on-line at the Prism Group website, at www.theprismgroup.org.

The Prism Group, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) was formed in 2002 to clarify issues relating to the Middle East. The Prism Groups voluntary researchers reside in several different countries around the world, and are dedicated to presenting a spectrum of viewpoints, thus promoting a better understanding of the political and social realities in the region.

For further information contact info@theprismgroup.org or visit the Prism Group website at www.theprismgroup.org