[nicky g]

Hmm. Let's have a look at what you are claiming now, compare it to what you origninally claimed, and see how both of them stand up:

"1. Arab schools teach children to hate Israel and the west, and that it is honorable to destroy the infidels."

All your links but one point to Palestinian publications. The other is an Iranian children's newspaper. Iran is not an Arab country. The article, which is hardly from impeccable sources (the IDF itself) presents no evidence of any state or educational support for the publication. All it demonstrates is that there are people in the Muslim world who create pro-Hamas/IJ propaganda. This is hardly up for debate. None of your links demonstrate any teaching praising the suicide bombers in state-run schools, whether Palestinian or other Arab ones. One of them points to an Islamic Jihad training camp for children. Again, that Islamic Jihad tries to indoctrinate people in favour of suicide bombings is hardly under question. That it includes chilren is lamentable - this was not your claim, and not what I questioned. Furthermore, they all relate to suicide bombings against Israel; you have offered no evidence concerning children being encourage to hate the west or kill "infidels," in Palestine or any other Arab country. This is rather pathetic, as it would be pretty easy to find at elast one example of a school (most likely a fundamentalist Saudi religious school) that encouraged something along those lines, though I doubt if you could come close to showing that state schools in most Arab countries encourage this.

"2. Arab schools and Arab society teach and encourage children to become suicide bombers. "

Again, no evidence of anything about schools, and none of Arab society encouraging children to become suicide bombers outside of Palestine.

"3. Children are encouraged to become suicide bombers through propaganda campaigns consisting of cartoons depicting suicide bombers as heroes to be emulated."

Bruce, this is what you wrote, and what I queried:

"As for "most Arab governments", that depends on if you go by what they do, or if you are gullible and go by what the tell the west their policy is. If you want to know what their true attitude is, look at what the government controlled schools teach their kids. That it is their duty to hate the west, to hate Israel, and that it is an honroable purpose to kill all the infidels who trespass on their land."

You referred to "most Arab governements", and governement-controlled schools. You said nothing about the existnece of pro-suicide bombing propaganda directed towards children. Of course some exists - it's created by the suicide bombers and their supporters. Again, you wrote about "most Arab governement" state schools.


"4. Arab states sanction and financially support suicide bombings, and the teaching of schoolchildren to become suicide bombers. "

Er, you didn't say this either. At all. Almost certainly Hamas and IJ receive somne financial support from other countries, mainly Iran (not and Arab country), and Syria. This isn't most arab states, but anyway, this was not somethng I disputed, as you didn't claim it. It does not in anyway follow from this that most Arab countries teach their children to kill Jews, hate the West and kill trespassing infidels.

"5. Arab states financially support a number of terrorist groups."

Again, you didn not claim this. I don't dispute that some Arab states support terrorist groups.

Finally, this is what the HRW report you link to says about the PA's responsibility for terrorism:

"However, on the basis of evidence available through the end of September, 2002, Human Rights Watch did not find evidence demonstrating that President Arafat or other senior PA officials ordered, planned, or carried out suicide bombings or other attacks against civilians. While senior PA officials fostered an atmosphere of impunity, we also did not find evidence that they authorized specific attacks or attacks against civilians generally, or that PA officials or institutions organized or assisted in preparing or carrying out attacks against civilians systematically or as a matter of policy. The "memo to Tirawi" suggests that at least some senior PA officials viewed these attacks favorably, but, as discussed in Section V, the PA and the Fatah political leadership did not have the effective control over the actions of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades necessary to establish criminal liability under the doctrine of command responsibility."

The funding section offers some anecodotal evidence both for and against the idea that PA funds find there way into Fatah, and from their into the al-Asqa martyr brigades (though not enough for them to conclude that the PA could be held crimninally responsible for al-Asqa actions), and none of PA "financial support" for Hamas, which is what you actually claimed.