Ramadan, Religion, sports and Jew-hate

Ramadan has begun. It’s a major Muslim month-long period of fast and feast. This year, it began June 18th. It will end July 17th.

This holy month is supposed to “help teach Muslims self-discipline, self-restraint and generosity” (“Ramadan 2015: when does it end and tips for fasting”, The Week, June 24, 2015). It’s also a season of sport in the Palestinian Authority.

During the month of Ramadan, Palestinian Authority (PA) youth will be playing a football tournament in the PA town Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem—not too far from where I live. Some of the participants will be playing on teams named after terrorists who have killed Israeli civilians, mostly Jews. For the PA, this is called, creating role models for kids (Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, “Palestinian sports teams named after terrorists”, PalestinianMediaWatch, June 25, 2015).

Here’s a look at some of teams in the PA sports league playing in the football (soccer) tournament:

 -“The Martyr Abu Jihad team” (Abu Jihad was responsible for deaths of 125 people);

-“The Martyr Khaled Nazzal team” (Nazzal was responsible for the 1974 Ma’alot massacre, where 22 schoolchildren and 5 adults were killed);

-“The Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa” (Ali Mustafa was responsible for many terror attacks);

-“The Mutaz Hijazi team” (this terrorist shot and attempted to murder Rabbi Glick in November, 2014) (source for these names: Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 23, 2015).

How would you like your children to play for teams named after killers and those who died trying to kill?  Would you want your child playing for a team named after the 9/11 attackers?

It’s an absurd question. But for the PA, it’s the way things work. There’s nothing absurd about it at all.

The PA has been presenting murderous terrorists as heroes to children (by naming tournaments after them) for some time now. It’s a long-standing policy of the Palestinian Authority--and Fatah. Palestinian Media Watch (pmw) has documented this policy. You can track a decade’s worth of ‘killer naming incidents’ on the pmw Homepage, under “The Palestinian World, Sports”.  

The policy is incitement. It trains Arab youth to honour Jew-killers. It ennobles Jew-killers. It makes Jew-killers famous to impressionable children.

Supposedly, the PA has pledged to stop all kind of incitement against Jews. Clearly, it hasn’t.

Here’s a Modest Proposal. The PA has often said there can be no peace with Israel until Israel accepts the return into Israel of some 4.5 million ‘refugees’. Well, perhaps Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should make a demand of his own: Israel will not negotiate anything with the PA until Fatah and Hamas end their Jew-hate incitement, Jew-hate sermons, Jew-hate TV programs and Jew-hate-filled educational curriculums (if you want to see what this ugliness looks like, go to palestinianmediawatch and surf through its Homepage, also under the heading, “The Palestinian World”).

If there’s to be peace, let’s be serious about peace. Let’s stop the Jew-hate. Let’s stop incitement.

Otherwise, there’ll never be peace.