UN adopts Moroccan resolution against Qur’an burning;
it isn’t consistent with free speech laws
UN Adopts Morocco-Presented Resolution Against Burning of Quran, Hate Speech
It seems to me to be more of a concern that such actions create an environment of threats and hysteria among Muslims. If they didn't overreact exponentially, there would be no Quran burnings. The purpose of the desecrations is to provoke Islam to reveal its true nature, a nature that has no resemblance to a religion of peace, and it works every time.
European Parliament Takes Strong Stand
On Palestinian Schoolbooks, Then Capitulates
“And what they undid, did” (Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene II)
Just two months ago, I posted a hopeful piece here about the decision of the European Parliament to call on the European Commission to end all aid to the PA, because it has failed so singularly to fulfill its repeated promises to remove the antisemitic material from its schoolbooks. This is what I wrote at the time:
The European Parliament on Wednesday passed a resolution calling on the European Commission to suspend aid to the Palestinian Authority’s educational system until antisemitic and violent themes are removed from textbooks issued to K-12 students.
The resolution, passed with 421 yes votes with 577 members of parliament participating, “deplores the problematic and hateful material in Palestinian school textbooks and study cards which has still not been removed” and noted that the content is influencing a rise in terrorist activity among Palestinian teenagers.
This was not the first time the European Parliament has passed such a resolution. And the European Commission has similarly demanded, following such resolutions, that the PA revise its schoolbooks, cleansing them of objectionable material, but it never has. The European Commission has never followed through on its threats for long. Only once, for 13 months, did it halt aid to the PA, but then reinstated it when the Palestinians convinced the then-president of the EU, Ursula von der Leyen, that “all difficulties had been taken care of.. ”It appears that this time the European Commission, weary of being played for a sucker by the Palestinians, really will stop all of its aid to the PA.
That’s what I wrote on May 12, 2023. Now I have just learned that the European Commission has reversed itself; it will not, after all, “freeze aid” to the PA, even though the PA has done nothing about its antisemitic textbooks. More on this reversal can be found here: “The EU-Funded Education for Jihad and Martyrdom,” by Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute,
…Even the European Parliament condemned the Palestinian Authority over the “hateful” content of its textbooks. The European Union, for the past two-and-a-half years, withheld assistance from the Palestinian Authority while demanding political reforms and the purging of incitement to violence from Palestinian textbooks. A resolution passed this year by the European Parliament went so far as to directly link the content of the textbooks with Palestinian terrorism, particularly attacks by young people. The resolution also acknowledged that there is antisemitism in the textbooks and demanded that it be removed….
The Palestinian Authority, however, has not removed from its textbooks material that promotes either violence or loathing Jews.
Nevertheless, despite repeated talk by the European Union on the need to change Palestinian textbooks, it is apparently resuming unconditional financial aid to the Palestinian Authority. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced last year during a visit to Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians, that EU funds will be resumed “rapidly.”…
Questions in the Arabic Language exam, for instance, include a poem that praises Jerusalem’s “knights” who “go to their death with a smile,” and the importance of preparing for violent Jihad against Israel.
Students are also tested on passages in the Palestinian Authority’s Islamic Education textbook, that praise murder, violence and death. One question asks students to explain that Jihad is “the apex of Islam;” another questions them about a passage that describes martyrdom as a great honor. The Islamic Education exam emphasizes the importance of Jihad as “one of the gates to achieving martyrdom.”
In May, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to ask the European Commission to end all aid to the Palestinian Authority, given that it had failed to fulfill its repeated promises in the past to clean up its textbooks. The antisemitism and anti-Israel venom is still there, found in the study plans, the lessons, the homework assignments, even the exam questions, all about the treacherous Jews who must be expelled “from the river to the sea” to make way for the independent state of Palestine, and other lessons on the supreme duty of jihad against not just Jews, but also against all Infidels.
The European Parliament’s overwhelming vote to have the European Commission end aid to the PA as long as its schoolbooks remained unchanged seemed to have made a difference. Many said that “this time” the Europeans would not be satisfied with the PA’s assurances. But just two months later, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, has announced a complete resumption of the EU’s aid to the Palestinian Authority.
Mahmoud Abbas must be quite satisfied. Again the Europeans made threatening noises about how the PA’s unchanged textbooks would trigger an end to aid, and again the Europeans have backed down. A deplorable result.
And as for the European Commission putting pressure on the PA to end the “Pay-For-Slay” program by which it both rewards past, and incentivizes future, terrorism — don’t even ask. That’s a matter that the pusillanimous EU still won’t address.
=================================================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment