Optimistic sounds about a moderate new Palestinian leadership notwithstanding, Palestinian society continues to be permeated by a culture of death, rejection of the legitimacy of Israel and incitement to violence.

That, according to the director of a watchdog group that monitors Palestinian society, includes mass media, schoolbooks, even down to the level of the naming of its streets.

As to incitement, "it's almost a wrong term," Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch, said at a press briefing in Washington DC.

"When you talk about incitement, you are assuming that someone is inciting you to an action," Marcus said at The Israel Project-sponsored briefing. "What we are witnessing in Palestinian society is an indoctrination that has left a whole infrastructure that even without daily statements, even without television, is felt to be creating an atmosphere for the promotion of terror, of violence."

…While Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas is trying to stop the violence, Marcus concedes, "we don't think the way it is being done is good enough."

As during the late Yasser Arafat's time, terrorism is always called "resistance" in Palestinian newspapers, and "resistance is legitimate, including blowing up people on buses and restaurants."

And while Abbas rejects violence, his reason, as in a speech he gave on Feb. 17, is not rooted in abhorrence of killing but in tactics. "The balance of power is not equal," Abbas said in his speech, "and therefore we had no choice but to stop it [the Intifada]."

The message the new Palestinian leadership has been giving is that the time has come to stop fighting and try to make gains diplomatically.

"There is a planting stage of violence and a harvesting stage of diplomacy" is what Palestinian leaders have been saying, according to Marcus.

Marcus pointed to a recent Palestinian television interview with a member of the Central Committee of Fatah, the PLO faction founded by Arafat.

The Fatah member said not that the Fatah rejects violence, but that Hamas rejects diplomacy. "We believe in the appropriate time for the rifle and the appropriate time for negotiations," Marcus quoted the man as saying.

Palestinian religious and political leaders continue to say that "the diplomatic process is one stage that will lead to the destruction of Israel," although speeches stressing this idea have decreased in the past several months.

Although Abbas has removed music videos inciting children to become suicide bombers from P.A. TV, violence continues to be idealized throughout that society, the PMW head said.

On a television program for preschoolers a few months ago, for example, Tarabisho, the talking chicken, advised viewers to commit murder if a boy comes and cuts down trees.

This happened after Israel, reacting to the death of two Israeli children from a missile fired from Gaza into Sderot, moved into Gaza and cut down trees in a grove from which the missile was fired.

After Abdallah Badran blew himself up in Tel Aviv nightclub last month, P.A.-controlled newspapers referred to him as a shahid (martyr).

"There is no higher level of achievement in the way that Palestinians present the world to their people than to be a shahid," Marcus explained, "and this is continuing today under Mahmoud Abbas."

Other instances he presented of the glorification of violence include:

▪ Soccer tournaments and teams being named after terrorists. "Almost the entire sports infrastructure is being used to create role models and heroes for the Palestinians of the terrorists over the past few years," he said.

▪ Girls' summer camps named for the first female suicide bomber, Wafa Idris.

▪ Mothers instructed in the Palestinian press to react positively to the death of their children in suicide bombings.

▪ Hundreds of streets renamed for terrorists in Gaza City and Khan Younis, two Gaza towns.

▪ Schools named after "shahids." Palestinian schools where balloting was to be held for the January elections included 34 named after terrorists, said Marcus.

The PMW founder tells of a school near Hebron that was named for Dalal Mughrabi, a female terrorist involved in the 1978 bus hijacking in Israel in which 36 people were murdered. In 2002, the U.S. AID program funded the renovation of that school.

PMW learned the facility was named after Mughrabi and informed the State Department, which threatened to cut off funding. The Palestinians immediately said they changed the name of the school.

But one of the schools listed as a polling place in the Palestinian press was that identical Dalal Mughrabi School.

"They changed the name long enough to get the U.S. funding," Marcus said, "and as soon as they finished the renovations, the changed the name back."

This year's Foreign Operations Bill may be useful in slowing down that kind of veneration of violence. It contains language that "prohibits the funding of any individual, private or government entity or education institutions that the secretary [of State] has reason to believe advocates, sponsors or engages in, or has engaged in terrorist activities..."

Furthermore, the bill prohibits funding for "the purpose of recognizing or otherwise honoring individuals who committed acts of terrorism."

Asked why Abbas has failed to take action to change the atmosphere in the territories controlled by the P.A., Marcus said, "there is a possibility that he wants to create a radical change" but can't do it now.

"If that is the case, I hope within a short period of time that we would see some different message... Mahmoud Abbas was Yasser Arafat's right-hand man for several decades, and the burden of proof is on Mahmoud Abbas ... because he has come from that environment."