FEATURING:

Itamar Marcus – Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch

About this webinar: It has been abundantly clear from reports in major media outlets that the recent election of Joe Biden to the White House has been something that the Palestinian Authority has been banking on for some time. Despite the fact that the Palestinian Authority has refused to engage with the Trump administration since the opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem on May 14, 2018, despite the fact that the Trump Vision would have allowed for a Palestinian state, and would have pumped $50 billion into the Palestinian economy.

Meanwhile, the Abraham Accords have been embraced and celebrated in many Sunni Arab capitals in the region. They have all expressed frustration with the Palestinians for holding them back from a partnerships with Israel, which would enhance their capacities for cybersecurity, intelligence, medicine, and agriculture. What is incredibly symbolic of this transformation in thinking in the Sunni Arab world is the famous three “No’s” – no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel, and no peace with Israel, which was resolved by the Arab League immediately after the 1967 War, which took place in Khartoum, Sudan, who is now entering into a peace treaty with Israel.

How do the Palestinians feel about the Abraham Accords? What is their feeling about the presumptive election of Joe Biden as the next President of the United States? Will the United States, under a Biden administration, return to rewarding Palestinian intransigence, terrorism, and bad behavior and how will this, ultimately, bring peace to the Middle East and help the average Palestinian?

Here to answer these questions and more in Itamar Marcus, Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch.

Itamar Marcus is a researcher and the founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch, which studies Palestinian society by monitoring and analyzing the Palestinian Authority through its media and schoolbooks.

His work on textbooks led Benyamin Netanyahu to appoint Marcus to represent his country in the negotiations with the Palestinians on incitement in the Trilateral Anti-Incitement Committee (Israeli–Palestinian–American) in his capacity as Director of Research for the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMP), where he served from 1998 to 2000.

As Director of Research for CMP, Marcus wrote reports on PA, Syrian and Jordanian schoolbooks. CMP reportedly broke its link with Marcus stemming from criticisms stemming from disparities in CMP’s analysis of Israeli and Palestinian textbooks. “Incendiary quotations are explained, analyzed, and contextualized in the report on Israeli books; they are listed with only brief and sensationalist explanations in the reports on Palestinian books. In short, the center is fair, balanced and understanding toward Israeli textbooks but tendentious on Palestinian books.” In February 2007, together with then Senator Hillary Clinton he released a report on the newest PA school books at a press conference in Washington.

Marcus testified before the Education Subcommittee of the US Senate Committee on Allocations, documenting the Palestinian Authority’s indoctrination of children to seek death as Shahids – Martyrs – for public relations purposes. He has also presented before members of Congress, and to members of Parliament in numerous countries including, the European Union, United Kingdom, France, Canada, and Australia, and has lectured in universities and conferences worldwide.