News Brief

Western funders of a Palestinian media service rejected a report by a watchdog that said the service incites hatred. The Palestinian Media Watch report said that Ma’an, the news service, routinely referred to terrorists as “martyrs” and to areas inside Israel as “occupied.” “Hate incitement, including denial of Israel’s existence and glorifying terror, is universally accepted as a paramount cause of continued Palestinian terror,” PMW said in its report released April 3. “These governments, together with governments who have blindly funded Palestinian schoolbooks, bear direct moral responsibility for the continued hatred that is being ingrained into future Palestinian generations, and bear a moral responsibility for the terror and its victims.” Ma’an is funded by the Dutch and Danish governments. A spokesman for the Dutch government told The Jerusalem Post that the examples cited were “mistakes” made by novices that had been corrected. In its reply, Ma’an cited a dictionary to show that the Arabic word “shahid” referred to those killed in action as well as religious martyrs. It also said that the reference for “occupation” outside of the West Bank was in east Jerusalem, an area Israel has annexed but that the Palestinians still claim for their capital. PMW has made inroads in influencing U.S. policy on incitement, with testimony in Congress and a close relationship with Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).