Since the election of Mahmoud Abbas as chairman of the Palestinian Authority, there has been a change in the nature of Palestinian television broadcasts. The amounts of anti-Israeli propaganda and incitement have diminished, part of Abbas' attempt to change the atmosphere in the "Palestinian street" and to stop the ongoing violent Palestinian-Israeli confrontation.

Between his election and the summit meeting at Sharm el-Sheikh, Abu Mazen voiced highly encouraging statements, and praised the peace process and "the cessation of all violent activity of Israelis and Palestinians wherever they are" (Al-Jazeera TV, February 8, 2005).

Following his demand for a crackdown, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently remarked that anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian Authority media had indeed lessened. "Palestinian education and propaganda are more dangerous to Israel than Palestinian weapons," Sharon said.

However, for more than four years PA religious and academic leaders have repeatedly promoted the murder of Jews as the will of God and historical necessity.

Such damage is not easily undone.

Further, the Palestinian media still contain anti-Israeli propaganda and incitement and there are still no changes in sources of incitement, such as the graffiti and posters appearing on walls, in mosques and in the educational system.

Television

There has been a significant decrease in the number of songs inciting anti-Israeli violence: During the Arafat era approximately 15 such songs were broadcast daily, and during Israeli army actions the number often rose as high as 30. Since Abu Mazen's election the number has dropped to three to five songs daily. Instead, national songs and appearances by singers and dancers have been broadcast more.

However, in December 2004, PA TV rebroadcast an hour-long hate-promotion film that indoctrinates viewers, especially youth, with the message that Israel has no right to exist. The program stresses that Jaffa, Haifa, and Acre are occupied "Palestine," stolen from the "refugees." It even features a child vowing ― with his "blood" ― to "return" to west Jerusalem.

Newspapers

On February 25, 2005, a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 5 Israelis at a night club in Tel Aviv. All of the Palestinian broadcast media and major newspapers referred to the attack as "explosive operation" and "heroic martyrdom operation." (All three top newspapers are tightly monitored and subsidized by the Abbas administration.)

Two of the newspapers ran front-page color portraits of the suicide bomber, and the newspaper Hayat al-Jadida (from Abbas' own Fatah organization) described the bomber as "the shaheed" ― holy martyr hero. Another photograph shows his mother holding the terrorist's picture, and is captioned: "The mother of the Shahid."

Abbas and other Palestinian officials criticized not the morality of the action itself, but the damage to the Palestinians. The PA issued this statement:

"President Mahmoud Abbas described the operation... as a condemned sabotage attack, blaming a third party for the execution in order to jeopardize the peace process and to damage the reputation or the Palestinian people."

Hassan Asfour, a member of the PA parliament, put it this way on PA TV: "This is the first action that no one is happy about. Everyone felt that the timing is not [right] and there is absolutely no need for it... It is not because the resistance against the occupation is a mistake, but because the nature, location and timing of the action are a mistake."

Publishing cartoons hostile to Israel in the PA's house organ: The Palestinian media are still rife with anti-Israel cartoons, which are an easily-grasped and effective way of spreading hatred for Israel, delegitimizing it and sowing lack of faith in Israel's intentions for peace. Omayya Joha, whose vicious cartoons have made her immensely popular, supports the use of terrorism and appears regularly in Al-Hayat Al-Jadeedah, the PA's house organ.

Currently, an official PA website (a department of the Palestinian Authority State Information Service) features a caricature of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a butcher holding a bloody butcher knife over a bleeding baby that is lying on a butcher block. Behind him are two Palestinians hanging on meats hooks. (View cartoon).

Israeli continues to be libeled in the Palestinian press with charges often based on outright lies. For example, on February 4, 2005, Al-Hayat Al-Jadeedah printed an announcement from the "National Guidance Department" in east Ramallah, warning Palestinians not to approach suspicious objects and landmines [sic]. The "occupation forces" or settlers planted them, according to announcement, in many areas, including near dwellings, schools and tilled land. The reason, according to the announcement, was that "the occupation forces want to pressure the Palestinian people in a variety of ways to force them to get rid of their lands."

Similarly, the killing of a Palestinian school girl in a Gaza school yard on January 31 was declared to be the work of Israeli soldiers when, in fact, the girl was accidentally shot by Muslim pilgrims returning from Mecca who carelessly fired celebratory shots in the air. The Palestinian media "celebrated" the girl's martyrdom for three days with inflammatory articles, front-page pictures and cartoons all depicting the Israelis as bloodthirsty child-murderers.

Mosques

Results are mixed. In the Friday sermon of December 3, 2004, broadcast on Palestinian Authority TV, preacher Muhammad Jammal Abu Hunud called for the development of a modern Islamic discourse, to recognize the "other," to treat him with tolerance, and to avoid extremism and violence. He said:

"Contemporary Islamic discourse must not remain locked in fixed molds and rigid frameworks which no longer suit the developments of our era and of life. In other words, there is a need to develop and renew the modern Islamic discourse. This call for renewal is not foreign to Islam and Islamic thought. Innovation is the law of life and of existence. The alternative to renewal, my brothers, is stagnation.

"One must not coerce, because the coercion of any religion begets nothing but hypocrites. Islam despises hypocrisy and hypocrites… Through this Islamic way of religious preaching, the ideas of 'the golden mean' and moderation and avoidance of any kind of extremism or inclination to violence or fanaticism become ingrained in people's minds…"

A small change in anti-Israeli incitement is found in the Friday sermons of Hamas-affiliated sheikh Ibrahim Madeiras, Gaza's chief cleric. His sermons, which include crude anti-Israeli propaganda and incitement (sometimes anti-Semitic), are broadcast live by PA-controlled Palestinian TV. During the past few weeks the following were noted:

A part of the January 28 sermon was devoted to explaining to the worshippers the importance of the truce and the need for "a time out for the fighters." On January 20, during the Feast of the Sacrifice sermon (attended by Abbas), he spoke about advancing a new PA agenda and condemned the "anarchy of weapons," citing religious reasons (on Friday, February 11, 2005, his sermon was not broadcast).

However, in his February 4, 2005 sermon he noted that the Palestinians had not ceded the lands of 1948. He said that Palestinians would return to those lands and not as part of a political process, even if it were a matter for generations not yet born.

"This does not mean that we have ceded Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramle and Tel Aviv," he stated. "We will never return to the '48 borders as part of a political process… Our agreement to return to the '67 borders does not mean we are ceding Palestinian land. No."

What still has to be done?

So far, the changes instituted by Abu Mazen are superficial and should only be considered the beginning. They do not reflect an overall PA effort to bring about a profound change in Palestinian perceptions of the ongoing violent Palestinian-Israeli confrontation with Israel, not immediately and certainly not in the long run.

It is not even clear to what extent there is compliance. In December 2004, reports "published by certain Arab and foreign media" said that Abbas had visited broadcasting heads in Samaria and Gaza and ordered a halt to anti-Israel incitement "are completely untrue," PA Information Ministry official Ahmed Sobh told a local Ramallah radio station Wednesday.

"The aim of such wrong news is to give the impression to the public in the Arab world that the Palestinian Authority heeds the instructions of Israel instead of achieving the aspirations and ambitions of the Palestinian people," Sobh was quoted as saying by the Washington Times.

The conclusion drawn from the current situation is that so far, positive signs are being shown by Abu Mazen and other high-ranking figures in the Palestinian Authority, perhaps heralding the beginning of a change , important in itself, in the dimensions of anti-Israeli incitement . However, so far the PA has taken only superficial steps . In the future, to stop such incitement altogether and to make genuine changes in Palestinian consciousness regarding Israel, the PA will have to deal much more effectively with anti-Israeli incitement: more broadly, more profoundly and over a long period of time :

In terms of the immediate future, the PA must:

▪ Make profound changes in the Palestinian media: Continue the broadcasting of positive statements made by the Palestinian leadership, remove all inciting songs and programs, eradicate anti-Israeli libel and change in the terminology used in reference to Israel.

▪ Clean the streets of anti-Israeli propaganda: Remove from streets and public places (including in the vicinity of schools) the graffiti and posters which preach hatred, the continuation of violence and the turning of Palestinian terrorist shaheeds into role models.

▪ Stop the generation and distribution of books, cassettes and CDs (some of which are imported from countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia) which preach hatred and continued violence.

▪ Stop the incitement coming from the mosques and increase PA supervision of the preachers, especially those affiliated with Hamas (as was done in the past by the Palestinian Preventive Security).

In the long run, the PA must:

▪ Stop the incitement to anti-Israeli hatred and terrorism in the Palestinian Authority educational system (both formal and informal), from the kindergartens to the universities.

▪ Change educational and cultural materials (books, textbooks, literature, poetry, plays).