Poem in PA-sponsored kids magazine encourages rock-throwing
‘Sing by the order of Prophet [Muhammad] that we carry a rock that we will throw’ at Jews, verse reads
A kids magazine partly supported by the Palestinian Authority published a poem that said the Muslim Prophet Mohammad encouraged youth to throw stones at Jews.
“Sing by the order of Prophet [Muhammad] that we carry a rock / That we will throw at the people of the Gharqad [tree],” reads the poem, published in Zayzafuna’s October issue.
“The people of the Gharqad [tree]” is a religious euphemism for the Jewish people in Islamic tradition.
The Israeli watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported on the poem’s publication on Sunday and published a translation.
Palestinians target Israeli cars on West Bank roads with stones on a near-daily basis, and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in the West Bank and east Jerusalem often involve Palestinian stone-throwing.
Stone-throwing by Palestinians has also caused a number of fatal incidents.
In July 2015, the Knesset passed a bill increasing the maximum incarceration period to 20 years for stone throwers in cases where the intent to inflict harm is proven.
In 2011, the Zayzafuna magazine lost funding from UNESCO because of a poem that depicted Hitler as a hero of a Palestinian girl, who dreamed she spoke to the Nazi dictator.
The girl in her dream asked Hitler: “You’re the one who killed the Jews?” Hitler responds: “Yes. I killed them so you would all know that they are a nation which spreads destruction all over the world.”
At that time, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, Ghassan Khatib, told the British paper the Daily Telegraph that the article was “not acceptable.”
“We educate young people in our textbooks about the Holocaust and the massacres of Hitler against Jews and against others, and we refer to these massacres as crimes against humanity,” Mr Khatib said. “This instance is exceptional, and the editor will try to be more careful in the future.”
