German news network accuses Israel of teaching children to hate
A documentary titled 'teaching to hate?' will be broadcasted on German mainstream network ZDF. The documentary aims to show how children are educated to kill, and makes comparisons between the Palestinian education systems and Israeli education systems.
An advertisement for a German television documentary which will deal with how children in the Palestinian Authority are taught to hate and kill has caused an uproar for claiming that Israeli children are also taught to hate and kill Palestinians.
The program will be aired on ZDF, a German television channel which is known for its anti-Israel slant.
The ad for the documentary, titled "teaching to hate?" asks the question "how do Israeli and Palestinian children learn to despise one another – and kill?"
The documentary makes the comparison between incitement to murder and hatred in Palestinian schools to the education and incitemetn to hatred which Israeli children alleged receive. This, despite the fact that the documentary clearly and explicitly proves that the education systems which spread incitement to kill and to hate is on the Palestinian side only.
While the documentary doesn't claim that the Israeli education system teaches children to kill Arabs, it does say that Arabs are presented in a negative light in Israeli textbooks. An example of this "racist education" against the Arab population is that the majority of Israeli students, when drawing a picture of an Arab, draw the Arab sitting on a camel.
Following a wave of protests directed at ZDF, the station pulled the anti-Israel ad and ran an apology ad, saying "the wording of the documentary has caused misunderstandings. If someone was hurt by the wording, we ask for their forgiveness."
Nevertheless, the uproar following the advertisement is continuing, especially in light of the station's anti-Israel line.
The German newspaper Bild asks "was this was a mistake or intentional distortion of the facts with an anti-Semitic slant?"
Various research institutes have researched the content broadcasted on ZDF, and have found that it is consistently anti-Israel. The station avoided reporting on the murder of 13 year old Hallel Yaffe Ariel who was killed by a Palestinian terrorist in in her bed Kiryat Arba. The station did report on Palestinian injuries which occurred as a result of IDF operations following the girl's death however.
