Palestinian demonstrators display a poster showing terrorist Dalal Mughrabi alongside the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat. Photo: File.

Once a year, the Palestinian Authority (PA) celebrates National Reading Day, also named “Palestine’s Schools Read.”

But what are Palestinian children reading?

One book stood out when the PA’s South Hebron Directorate of Education posted photos of the reading activities in the district:

The title of the book on the right is Hanadi in the Restaurant of Horror.

This is a children’s book about Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist and female suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat.

She carried out a suicide attack at a restaurant in Haifa on Oct. 4, 2003, murdering 21 Israelis and wounding over 50.

This is yet another example of the PA’s child abuse, and how the PA teaches children that terrorists are their role models and that Martyrdom is an ideal to strive for.

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has reported how this celebration of terrorism is fundamental to PA/Fatah ideology, exposing most recently in the report Teaching Terror to Tots about how Fatah’s youth magazine promotes terrorism for kids and promises the destruction of Israel.

In addition, PMW has documented many examples of Palestinian girls being taught to look up to female terrorist murderers in particular.

This terror role-modeling does not take place only in elementary school. Rather, it continues at the university level as well.

Fatah’s Shabiba Student Movement and Student Union Council at Palestine Technical University-Kadoorie welcomed new students with free notebooks and stationery bearing photos of terrorists Dalal Mughrabi, Salah Khalaf, and Yasser Arafat.

Mughrabi led the murder of 37 people, 12 of them children; Khalaf, or “Abu Iyad,” was the head of the Black September terror organization; and Arafat was the chairman of the PLO and PA.

Following Hanadi Jaradat’s suicide bombing, the PA Ministry of Culture produced a poetry collection in her honor that stressed “death as a Martyr for Allah” as “the highest goal” achieved by “blowing up the enemy”:

The book’s dedication reads: “To the rose of Palestine, the iris of the Carmel, the Martyr Hanadi Jaradat'”

The poem in Jaradat’s honor ends as follows:

Oh Hanadi! Shake the earth under the feet of the enemies!
Blow it up!
Hanadi said: ‘This is my wedding’
It’s Hanadi’s wedding, the day when death as a Martyr for Allah becomes the highest goal, that redeems my land.” [emphasis added]

[Al-Ayyam, independent Palestinian daily, Aug. 22, 2005]

In 2014, while Hamas was again firing missiles at Israel, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Movement expressed its support for the murder of Israelis with a video honoring nine female terrorist murderers.

Hanadi Jaradat, having murdered 21 Israelis, ranked second among them, only surpassed by Dalal Mughrabi, who led the murder of 37 people:

The same year, Fatah highlighted a female army unit training to launch rockets at Israelis, again pointing out murderers Dalal Mughrabi and Hanadi Jaradat as role models who should be emulated:

TV reporter: “Another aspect of the Palestinian woman’s role in all areas is being created here. She is not merely the man’s partner in domestic life, but his companion wherever he is; on the battlefield, she is at his side on the frontline, and fulfills an active role in training generations of resistance [fighters], who will confront the ‘invincible’ army. …

They thereby strive to become an important part of the path of Jihad and the struggle – the path walked by Dalal Mughrabi, Hanadi Jaradat and Reem Riyashi …

Female fighter: “We are young women, but we can do the impossible … We support our boys, our husbands and our leaders to liberate Palestine, in the way of leader Yasser Arafat. We are the sisters of Dalal Mughrabi. We will continue to walk the path …”

TV reporter: “The woman in Palestine is no longer a prisoner of her home or work, but constitutes the foundation of the [young] generations’ education and the occupation’s defeat.” [emphasis added]

[Facebook, “Fatah – The Main Page,” July 10, 2014, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades YouTube channel, July 10, 2014]

Terrorist Dalal Mughrabi is by far the PA’s most “popular” female role model, with five schools having been named after her, thus creating a strong identification for girls.

PMW exposed this interview with teenage girls studying in a Dalal Mughrabi school. One of the girls stated that her “life’s ambition” was to become like murderer Dalal Mughrabi:

PA TV host: “Today we are in the Dalal Mughrabi School [in Gaza], to get to know the Palestinian Martyr and fighter [Dalal Mughrabi] …”

Student 1: “Dalal Mughrabi is a great leader, who raised more and more and worked for the Palestinian cause to protect the pure land of the homeland, by defending Jerusalem to liberate it. This fighter may have died and her soul may have ascended to Heaven, but still our mothers give birth to thousands like Dalal, and she still walks among us. Dalal Mughrabi has given us a lot, and I personally am proud to attend the Dalal Mughrabi School, which bears this pioneering name.”

Student 2: “My life’s ambition is to reach the level that the Martyr fighter Dalal Mughrabi reached…”

Teacher at the school: “Dalal Mughrabi is a fighter who carried out Jihad and struggle from the beginning of her life. She was one ofthe brave female fighters who carried out Martyrdom-seeking operations (i.e., terror attacks). We in the Ministry of Education had the honor of naming our school after the Martyr Dalal Mughrabi, so that her eternal memory will stay for a long time.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, March 27, 2014]

The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.