Palestinian Xwords are clueless on Israel
Puzzles in official newspaper put cities such as Beersheba and Tel Aviv in ‘Palestine,’ glorify terrorists, media watchdog group says
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleStuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
The Palestinian Authority’s official newspaper, Al-Hayat al-Jadidah, has a habit of placing Israeli cities in “Palestine” as the answer to some of its crossword puzzles.
The non-government organization Palestine Media Watch (PMW) said in a statement on Tuesday that it has found numerous examples of puzzling geography in the newspaper.
In one example of a crossword from December 2012 the clue “Southern Palestinian city” had the answer Beersheba. Another from 2009 hinted “Modern city in conquered Palestine” for Tel Aviv.
Israel’s southern sea-side resort town of Eilat was clued in 2011 as “a Jordanian port on the Red Sea, north of Akaba” and Jaffa was called “a Palestinian port on the Mediterranean sea”.
The Arabic crosswords also laud terrorists, PMW said. A 2009 puzzle contained the question “A martyr and Palestinian commander who carried out the Coastal Mission”. The answer was Dalal Mughrabi who in 1978 led a terrorist attack that killed 37 people.
In 1999 PMW noticed a crossword clue in al-Jadidah that defined the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum as “a Jewish center to memorialize the Holocaust and the lie”.
PMW said the crosswords show that the Palestinian Authority is continuing its policy of not recognizing Israel’s existence.
The Times of Israel Community.