• Sending children to die on the front-line of battle. From Golda to Gaza by DAVID BEDEIN
• Text of Letter Sent by Likud Leader Ariel Sharon to US Sec'y of State Madalyn Albright by MK Ariel Sharon
• Did Major General Yaakov Or Fool Himself or Did the Israeli Government Fool Itself about the Damage of Arms Supplies to the PA? by By Amos Harel
• Arafat in Amman: No Need to Stop the Fighting by Steve Rodan
• Palestinian Schoolbooks Under Fire by Jamie Taraby
• When the ADL Went Soft on Arafat's Textbooks by David Bedein

During my first year in Israel, 30 years ago, Golda Meir was the Prime Minister. I remember the affection that I had for her. After all, her American accent was thicker than mine. Yet there was another reason for that affection. Golda had a way of saying things about Israel's predicament on the international scene that no one else seemed capable of conveying.

I cannot forget the only time that I ever met Golda in person.

Golda held a meeting with students at the WZO conference in 1972.

She told us that she was filled with hope that our generation would be one that would live in peace and reconciliation with our Arab neighbors. Golda then coined a phrase that would reverberate in Zionist circles for years to come.

Responding to a question about whether she had any regrets and second thoughts as a Zionist, Golda shed what seemed to be a genuine tear, hesitated for a moment, and then said, in a soft, choking voice, that...

"We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children"

How appropriate Golda's comment would have been this week, when pictures of a dying 12 year old Arab boy flashed on TV screens around the world.

That boy was the product of the new school system of the Palestine National Authority Ministry of Education.

When you read the fifth grade Arabic language primer that is being taught in PA schools, a ten year old Palestinian Arab pupil is treated to a special sixteen page section of the primer that details the command for every Palestinian Arab child to engage in a Jihad to wipe the Jews out of Palestine, out of all of Palestine. In case the child did not get the message from the words in the book, the final page of the primer shows the final Arab military assault on Palestine. And the primer explains that a child who dies in the fight to liberate Palestine will become a "Shahada", a martyr, and enter the world to come.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported on a front page feature on August 3, 2000, Arafat had delegated more than 25,000 children to spend the summer in special military training camps where children from ages 8 to 16 were trained in the art of guerrilla warfare, with the aim of engaging thousands of Palestinian Arab youth in a Jihad to liberate Jerusalem. These children were taught how to make firebombs, lay ambushes, while practicing the killing of Israeli civilians and soldiers alike.

At their summer camp, these children were also taught the role that Palestinian Arab children had played in the glories of recent Palestinian history - the role that the RPG ids had played in fighting Israeli troops in Lebanon in the early 1980's, when the PLO had made it a point to distribute small, lethal weapons for Palestinian Arab youngsters to fire at Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers at short range.

The technique was simple. A few seemingly innocent Arab children would stand in the way of Israeli troops, seeming to pose no threat.

And then they would fire deadly RPG missiles at point blank range.

Palestinian children also learned about the role that they played during the Intifada in the late 1980's and early 1990's when the PLO relegated alestinian with the role of "strategic stone-throwers".

As Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab described in his seminal piece in the Journal of Palestine Studies in February, 1988, Palestinian children in each age category were each given a different role to play in stone-throwing. Kuttab described the public relations effect that the PLO would gain from children casualties that would result from the riots.

So there you have it. If more Arab children die in riots, 250 news agencies from around the world will film the death of these Arab children.

And PLO crocodile tears will spill all over the media.

Golda's admonition would have been more appropriate for the real anger that should be expressed when the PLO dispatches children to die in the line of fire:

"We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children"

A note of interest: the UN has passed six unanimous resolutions that forbid the use of children as combatants in war. As a result, UNICEF mentions this in the INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD.

On October 2, 2000, after three days in which Israeli Arab leaders had dispatched their children to the front lines of riots, the Maariv newspaper reported that The Israel Association for the Welfare of the Child, well known for its leading role in the fight against child abuse in Israel, had issued a public appeal to the Israeli Arab community leadership in which it demanded that Israeli Arab citizens take their children out of the riots.

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Monday October 2, 20000

Dear Secretarv Allbright:

I deeply regret, and I find it totally unacceptable that your spokesman was quick to make a false statement that my visit to The Temple Mount "may have caused tension," insinuating that it ignited the riots and disturbances in Jerusalem that spread to Judea, Samaria and Gaza and later, to Israel itself.

I find it most regrettable and disturbing that your spokesman has been swayed by slanderous propaganda on the part of the Palestinian leaders and media, intended to put pressure on Israel and the US to make additional concessions in the negotiations, under threat of violence if their demands are not met.

I have expressed my concern and regret at the widespread violence and the senseless loss of lives and injuries on both sides. But it must be clearly understood that it wasn't my visit to The Temple Mount the holiest site for Jews and under full Israeli sovereignty - that ignited the current outbreak of violence.

Israel's Security Establishment has publicly presented its conclusions that the violent riots and armed confrontations, are part of a premeditated and organized campaign initiated by the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). This campaign began over ten days ago in the Netzarim area in Gaza, starting with stone throwing and escalating to the use of firearms and explosives against Israeli soldiers and civilians travelling there,

These riots have spread out through the deliberate incitement (prior to the visit) by the 'Tanzim' (the armed militia of Chairman Arafat's Fatah organization). Last Friday Arafat instructed the 'Tanzim' to escalate the riots. Moreover, Palestinian Security Chiefs have been directly involved in inciting the violence and in ordering Palestinian Police to open fire on Israeli soldiers, Police and civilians.

Arab Members of the Knesset (MKs) have contributed to and joined this violent campaign by repeated incitement calling Arab Israelis as well as Palestinians to resort to violence prior, during and after my visit to The Temple Mount.

This is not the first time I'm visiting The Temple Mount. The Inspector General of the Police has explained that the large Forces which the Police deployed to safeguard the visit, were required due to Palestinian threats prior to the visit to resort to large scale violence in order to take control of the Western Wall area below The Temple Mount.

I wish to emphasize, Mrs. Secretary, that Prime Minister Barak has already stated very clearly that every Israeli citizen, be it Arab or Jew, has a right to visit any place which is under Israeli sovereignty.

The united city of Jerusalem, which you are all very familiar with, as well as The Temple Mount, are under full Israeli sovereignty. Neither I, nor any Israeli citizen need to seek permission from the PA or from any foreign entity to visit there or any other site which is sovereign territory of the State of Israel.

As for myself, I wish to assure you that despite the recent violent events I remain fully committed to achieving peace with all our Arab neighbors including the Palestinians.

I believe we can reach peace, but it must be durable and real peace based first and foremost on complete negation of violence. Furthermore, it requires Arab Palestinian recognition and acceptance of the historical inherent rights that Jews have on their land in their undivided Capital Jerusalem and particularly sovereign rights and free access to our most sacred site on The Temple Mount. This right is granted and has only been safeguarded to every Israeli citizen as well as visitors, regardless of race, creed or religion since Israel united the city in 1967.

Sincerely Yours,
Ariel Sharon, Chairman
Likud Party

38 King George St. Tel Aviv 63298 ISRAEL
Tel. 972-3-5252925 Fax 972-3-5252932
E-MAIL: LIKUD@LIKUD.ORG.IL

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These ties have helped Or to nurture an atmosphere of virtual normalization in the relationship between the two sides. They have helped him solve problems and remove bureaucratic obstacles. But first and foremost, these ties were designed to help him "put out the fires" should Israelis and Palestinians start shooting at each other.

Since the end of last week, Or has been watching his handiwork go down the drain. This time, unlike during the Western Wall tunnel riots in 1996, the cellular phones have at least remained open: Senior PA officials have returned their Israeli colleagues' phone calls, yet verbal agreements were never implemented.

Again and again, the Palestinians promised to stop the shooting, but failed to honor their commitments. Or and other senior security officials gradually began to suspect that Arafat is simply not interested in stopping the violence just yet. On the one hand, he sends the heads of his security services for talks with Israel; while on the other, he urges the Tanzim leaders to continue the rioting.

The theory that Or marketed to several prime ministers and defense ministers was that economic development would prevent violence. Joint projects, industrial and commercial parks along the border between Israel and the PA, even high-tech ventures would increase the cost of violence for the PA and would cause many Palestinians to think twice before supporting a confrontation with Israel.

At the same time, Or warned Barak several times that without real progress in the talks with the Palestinians, an explosion could be expected. Barak did offer concessions at Camp David. But this weekend, the explosion took place anyway.

The IDF believes the events are a clever ploy devised by Arafat, exploiting the opportunity presented to him by the visit of Likud Chairman Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount to focus the struggle of the Palestinians on the issue of Jerusalem.

Security sources, noting the presence of one of the heads of the PA security services, Tawfiq Dirawi, on the Temple Mount on Friday, believe that Arafat lit the fire, even if he is now having trouble controling the intensity of the flames.

The Palestinians reject this theory. They say that Arafat has no control over what is happening, that he is simply being dragged along by the events in the street and that the confrontation was brought on by a sense of profound frustration and injustice over issues such as land, water, Israel's use of military force and, more than anything else, Jerusalem.

Israeli security officials are having trouble deciphering the behavior of the Palestinian street. Army officers, and intelligence experts in particular, tend to see the events in an organized fashion: Someone is issuing the orders and others are executing them.

Analysis of the Palestinian mood has been lacking, especially since most Palestinians no longer live in territory controlled by Israel. On the other hand, there is evidence to support Israel's assessment: the conversation Arafat had with the heads of the Tanzim on Friday, in which he urged them to escalate their demonstrations, the organized transport to demonstration sites and the conspicuous involvement of Tanzim leaders and PA security forces in some of the confrontations.

The heads of the PA security services, said Deputy Chief of Staff Major General Moshe Ya'alon on Sunday, are caught between a rock and a hard place. The IDF charges that Arafat is sending unclear instructions to Mohammed Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub. And if the PA is truly going to war, Ya'alon said, Dahlan and Rajoub have no interest in trying to calm the situation and thereby appearing as collaborators with Israel.

On Saturday afternoon, Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz believed that he had succeeded in extinguishing the fire. At a press conference in Beit El, the military headquarters in the West Bank, Mofaz said he had spoken with Dahlan and Rajoub and the three had agreed to make an effort to stop the fighting at 4 P.M. A minute after Mofaz left the room, professional army officers expressed grave doubts about the validity of the ceasefire agreement.

"Ten more funerals are still to come," said one. "There is no chance that things will calm down."

In the end, the latter viewpoint turned out to be true. Dahlan was infuriated by Mofaz's statement, which, in his opinion, painted Dahlan as a "collaborator." He quickly issued a public statement declaring the chief of staff a war criminal, in light of the firing of missiles at the Netzarim Junction in Gaza, and said he would refuse to meet with Mofaz.

Early Sunday morning, Avi Dichter, head of the Shin Bet security services, and Major General Yitzhak Eitan, GOC Central Command, met with Dahlan and Rajoub in Ramallah. Arafat declined to attend. The Israelis were given the impression that the Palestinians understood that the time had come to stop the shooting. But their promises again came to naught. The Israelis feel that Palestinian compliance with their requests is still minimal.

Last weekend forced a rude awakening from many illusions. The harsh statements made by the commander of the northern police district, Alik Ron, about Israeli Arabs suddenly took on a different character against the background of the blockades of the Golani Junction and Wadi Ara, roads that are intended to serve the IDF in the event of a war.

The open scorn displayed by ministers for the dangers of arming the Palestinians also appears in a different light now: If this much damage can be done with a few hundred firearms, how much damage could 40,000 rifles in the hands of the PA cause? It is also difficult to see how the trust between the security services of the two sides can be rebuilt or when Border Policemen will again agree to participate in joint Israeli-Palestinian patrols.

A new picture has emerged both in the territories and inside the pre-1967 borders and it will be some time before we are able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

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Arafat kissed both cheeks of Jordan's King Abdullah and then pulled the monarch toward him and kissed his forehead. Later, the two men sat down and Arafat reviewed a list of demands he wanted Abdullah to relay to Israel and the United States.

In less than a week, Arafat has risen from being under the thumb of Israel and the United States to an Arab hero -- leading the fight for Palestinian rights in a battle that rages in Israel, the Palestinian territories and even in Jordan. As Arafat met the young Jordanian king on Monday, tens of thousands of Palestinians, chanting "Death to the Jews," demonstrated in refugee camps in and around Amman. Demonstrations were also reported in Damascus and Sanaa.

Palestinian sources said Arafat is pleased with the current fighting. The violence, called the worst in Israel since the 1948 war of independence, has been so intense in the Jewish state that the north has been cut off from the rest of the country and both domestic and international flights have been disrupted.

Arafat, the sources said, feels he has regained the ground he lost to Israel during the peace offensive by Prime Minister Ehud Barak since July's Camp David summit. They point to Western attention on the killing of Palestinian youngsters by Israeli troops rather than the attacks by Palestinian gunmen on Israeli positions.

The Israeli sources discount Palestinian arguments that last week's visit by Likud chairman Ariel Sharon to Jerusalem's Temple Mount sparked the violence. They said PA and Fatah forces were stockpiling ammunition and weapons 10 days before the violence erupted on Friday.

Israeli Internal Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami said he received a pledge by PA security chief Col. Jibril Rajoub that violence would not erupt unless Sharon actually entered the mosques on the Temple Mount. Sharon did not enter any mosque.

Regardless, the question is what does Arafat do for a closing act? It's an argument that is raging within Israeli government circles and pits aides of Barak against heads of the security services.

Some Barak aides insist that Arafat wants to end the fighting and return to the negotiating table in a stronger position. The problem is he simply can't control the violence. They said Arafat pledges nightly to U.S. officials that he will end the fighting. But every morning, the clashes resume.

The latest pledge was made on Tuesday when Israeli and PA officials said Arafat agreed to an immediate ceasefire in the territories. Israeli security sources don't expect this pledge to be implemented.

"What Chairman Arafat has managed to do is badly hurt the peace process and the willingness of Israelis to make concessions for peace," Interior Minister Haim Ramon said.

Israeli security sources disagree. They said Arafat wants Israeli blood to relay a warning of what will take place if the Palestinians don't get what they want in any settlement. He has been encouraged by the growing power of his Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia, bolstered by soaring oil prices.

Arafat, the sources said, wants to provoke Barak into a massive retaliatory response that will remind the West of Kosovo in 1999. This way, the sources said, the West will intervene quickly and massively.

PA officials do not deny this. They said they and their Arab and Islamic allies will demand international intervention when the United Nations Security Council convenes later on Tuesday in New York.

"What is happening is not merely clashes," said PLO Executive Committee secretary Mahmoud Abbas, regarded as Arafat's leading aide. "But it is an Israeli military attack on the entire Palestinian people."

With that, Arafat hopes that the West will provide the Palestinians with a blanket approval for independence from Israel. Already, Arafat aides have demanded significant revisions of agreements signed between Israel and the PA, including the deployment of United Nations forces on the Temple Mount, an end to Israeli security checks at Gaza border posts and the removal of Israeli heavy military equipment.

Arafat's goal, the sources said, is Western recognition of a state without paying a political price. His target date, the sources said, is Nov. 15, the anniversary of the 1988 declaration of statehood.

"This government, this state, this police have no right to rule the areas," PLO Executive Committee Faisal Husseini said. "The only result is that Israel must withdraw from this area. They don't have the right to continue after what they did here."

Israeli officials have been disturbed by the Clinton administration. They said the United States has been remarkably quiet over the PA offensive against Israeli forces and that U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has refused to call on Arafat to stop the violence.

Ms. Albright has scheduled a meeting with both Arafat and Barak in Paris on Wednesday. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak issued an invitation to the Israeli and Palestinian leaders for a Thursday summit in the Sinai resort of Sharm E-Sheik.

For his part, President Bill Clinton has not publicly pressured Arafat. Instead, he expressed dismay over the killing of Palestinians, particularly a 12-year-old and his father caught in cross-fire in Gaza.

"I was literally watching it as if it were someone I knew," Clinton said. "And it was a heartbreaking thing to see a child like that caught in the crossfire."

Israeli security sources said Arafat still wants an agreement. But he wants this to be limited to what they term "a ceasefire plus," in other words, an interim agreement that guarantees a Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem but doesn't terminate Palestinian demands.

But both Israeli and PA officials agree that the violence will not subside immediately. They said Arafat has succeeded in inflaming the Middle East in a way that was never achieved by his Islamic opposition.

The officials said Israel will first have to convince its Arab citizens to end their violent protests. Then, Arafat will have to wait for demonstrations around the Middle East to die down.

PA officials stressed that they have no plans to discourage the Arab anger against Israel. "These activities will continue," PA Information Minister Yasser Abbed Rabbo said.

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Ask him about Israel and Karam _ indeed, the whole first grade _ stares blankly.

That's not surprising _ their brand new civics textbook does not mention Israel at all, and the Jewish state is notably absent from the map on the classroom wall.

That's hardly the ``education for peace'' outlined in peace agreements, say Israeli critics who have demanded sanctions against the Palestinians _ and who have now been joined by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, fighting a close Senate race in New York.

Addressing Jewish groups on Tuesday, Clinton called on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who is also the education minister, to remove what are alleged to be anti-Semitic passages in Palestinian textbooks.

``All future (U.S.) aid to the Palestinian Authority must be contingent on a strict compliance and an immediate good-faith effort to change textbooks in all grades,'' Clinton said.

The textbooks have also become an issue for Prime Minister Ehud Barak as he seeks to complete a permanent peace agreement with the Palestinians. The leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, whose backing for a deal could be crucial, says the textbooks must first change.

``The textbooks of the Palestinian Authority tell how to kill and destroy the Jewish people,'' Shas leader Eli Yishai told reporters Wednesday. ``I don't see how we can support an agreement if this continues.''

Palestinian officials deny that their textbooks contain anti-Jewish references, and believe that Clinton _ otherwise considered a friend of the Palestinians _ has been co-opted by hard-line Israelis to win New York Jewish votes.

Clinton ``has to be very careful about where she gets her reports from,'' Deputy Education Minister Nabil Abu Hommos told The Associated Press. ``If she wants more information about the curriculum we can get it for her.''

Clinton may have been referring to ``Our Country, Palestine,'' by Arab historian Mustapha Mghad al-Dbaa, which advocates Israel's destruction and denies any Jewish connection to the region.

Material distributed here and in the United States recently by hard-line Israeli groups charges that the book is used as a standard text. In fact, although widely read among Palestinians, it is not part of curriculum.

Still, the new Palestinian textbooks _ colorful, glossy notebooks used for the first time this year_ stirred much controversy when Israelis discovered their country was not mentioned at all.

Until now, Palestinian schools have relied on old Egyptian and Jordanian texts, which include anti-Semitic stereotypes _ although the Palestinians insist that teachers did not refer to the stereotypes in class.

Israelis, who have appreciably altered their textbooks to include sympathetic portrayals of Palestinians, had hoped that the new textbooks would adhere to the commitment to ``educate for peace'' outlined in the breakthrough Oslo accords of 1993.

In its chapter on tolerance, the civics textbook used in Jamal Husam's sixth grade civics class in Beituniya shows a Muslim imam and a Catholic priest shaking hands, and includes passages from the New Testament and the Quran. Jews aren't mentioned.

When references to Israel arise during classroom discussion, they are oblique and ambiguous.

Husam tells his pupils that "other religions" besides Islam and Christianity merit tolerance. Eleven-year-old Mohammed Jamil, reviewing last week's lesson for the class, says the Arab nations would come together to defend Palestine and its borders _ but he does not say against whom.

Husam denies that the text or his lessons are anti-Semitic, saying: "The Jews aren't even mentioned."

That is precisely the attitude that infuriates even moderate Israelis. In a statement, Justice Minister Yossi Beilin _ an architect of the Oslo accords _ described the omissions as "inappropriate."

Palestinians say it's natural for their first self-published textbooks to focus on instilling a sense of nationhood in a people long dispossessed.

Abu Hommos defended the emphasis on Muslim-Christian relations, saying those were the two religions of the Palestinian people.

Each curriculum in every country talks about its own people," he said.

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Foxman brought the delegation to meet Yassir Arafat, inviting a select group of journalists and photographers to witness the session.

Since ADL had been assured by Arafat in April 1999 that Arafat would initiate a new curriculum, I wondered how ADL would confront Arafat with the fact that the new school books that have just been published for the first time by the PA and introduced to the first and sixth grade still continue to prepare Palestinian pupils for war with Israel.

Our news agency had indeed purchased a set of these texts from the PA curriculum center in El Birah, and we've begun to peruse them.

In the Palestinian sixth grade civics text, you see the picture of the Hamas icon, Izzadin Al Khassam, eulogized as the ultimate Palestinian folk hero. Jaffa and Acre are described as occupied lands that must be recovered. Jews are mentioned as a target for scorn in Islam. According to the new Palestinian texts, not only does Israel not exist - no Jews even live there, while all natural resources belong to the Arab nation.

Yet when Foxman led the delegation to meet Arafat , Yediot Aharonot reported that they held a lively discussion of the peace process. ADL delegation members told me that the discussion with Arafat did not mention Palestinian education. At the conclusion of the session, Abe Foxman handed Arafat a letter about the school books. Although Foxman and the ADL staff had never seen, perused nor studied the new PA school books, Foxman wrote Arafat that "we are encouraged by reports that the new textbooks do not have incendiary anti-Israel or anti-Jewish passages. However, we are disappointed that the textbooks appear to do nothing to educate Palestinian children on the peace process, the existence of the state of Israel, or promote tolerance between Palestinians and Israelis…Indeed, the maps of the region do not designate the state of Israel"

ADL had apparently relied on misleading "reports" which had stated that the new schoolbooks were be devoid of anti-Israel and anti Jewish passages.

ADL's lack of desire to examine or peruse the schoolbooks of the PA is not new.

Each year, the annual survey of worldwide anti-semitism that is funded by the ADL has been devoid of any study of the schoolbooks of the Palestinian Authority, even though the schoolbooks have always been made available to the ADL for review.

Yet even without school books at hand, Foxman could have raised other aspects of Palestinian education with Arafat, such as the "educational summer camps" of the Palestinian Authority that were held this summer for 25,000 youngsters, which the New York Times on August 3rd reported as nothing less than a training ground for young Palestinian terrorists.

Foxman could have used the Arafat meeting to question the daily call for liberation of all of Palestine and all of Jerusalem that is communicated on the official media of the Palestine Broadcasting Corportation, a media outlet that is under the direct control of Arafat.

Instead, Foxman used the meeting with Arafat to inform the Israeli public that American Jewish leaders had found Arafat to be a "healthy, stark, alert and ready" for negotiations with Israel, as Foxman portrayed Arafat to Yediot on September 21st.

Before departing from Israel on September 25th, Foxman was invited to speak from the rostrum of the Knesset forum on Antisemitism, where he declared that "no true peace can come until Arabs in their education are innoculated against anti-semitism.

In that light, I asked Foxman why ADL staff would conduct a study of the new books of the Palestinian Authority, and why the ADL had never included them in its studies on anti-semitism. He responded by saying that that he stood by his letter to Arafat, saying that Arafat's new books were a step in the right direction. I then asked him how he could say that if he had never seen the books, which I took out from my briefcase to show him. Foxman shrugged his shoulders.

Abe Foxman went on to say that the older schoolbooks in the Palestinian Authority were published by Egypt and Jordan, noting that Israel had never objected to the Jordanian and egyptian schoolbooks. Foxman apparently forgot that Israel had censored the anti-Israel passages in these books until the PA took over in 1994 and reinstated them.

Foxman also neglected to mention that these books remain in the curriculum of the Palestinian Authority school system, with their persistent calls for Jihad and their constant description of Israel as a Nazi entity.

Meanwhile, the ADL website section on PA anti-semitism has not been updated in two years. Why?

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