The Public Broadcasting Service has a new lesson that teaches your kids the glory of martyrdom. PBS is home to Big Bird, Frontline, and other programing made possible by viewers like you. Such include lesson plans instructing teachers how to show kids to be more sympathetic to radical Islamic suicide bombers in Palestine.
The name of one of the lesson plans that’s offered to students and teachers is Dying to be a Martyr. It’s offered at no cost by the Public Broadcasting Service, a taxpayer-funded nonprofit, and some of the material seems to encourage students to learn to sympathize with radical Islamic terrorists.
The lesson plan is offered through PBS’ LearningMedia website. The website is a media-on-demand service offering educators access to the best of public media and delivers research-based, classroom-ready digital learning experiences.
The lesson plan is designed for use in grades nine through 12. The stated objectives for the lesson plan include analyzing why the Middle East conflict began and continues today, discussing how religions can unite or divide people and explaining why individuals and groups sometimes turn to tactics of terrorism, and evaluate how terrorism affects the world we live in.
The first part of the lesson instructs teachers to use the provided materials to help explain the similarities and differences between Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
The second part provides the students with material meant to show how the nation of Israel came into existence and to explain the source of the conflict between the people of Palestine and Israel. The students are supposed to examine several important historical documents, including the Balfour Declaration and U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181.
The end of the second part instructs teachers to ask students to draw two faces that show emotions. One face for a Palestinian Muslim after seeing these documents, and one face for an Israeli Jew.
The third part of the lesson exposes students to a video of 18-year-old Mohanned Abu Tayyoun, a Palestinian terrorist who entered Israel carrying a bag of explosives with the intention of carrying out a suicide bombing. However, Mohanned wavers, and returns home without carrying out the mission.
The video is called by the lesson plan the Martyrdom video. It shows Mohanned being interviewed from a jail cell in Israel. He is asked why he wanted to be a suicide bomber. In response, Mohanned says that was his decision, adding that Martyrdom leads us to God. He also says that when you become a martyr, your prize for carrying out the operation is going to heaven.
Shockingly, Mohanned says that Palestinians prefer to die, just kill themselves, rather than live this worthless life, adding that Palestinians are hollow bodies living a pointless life. In what appears to be a contrast with Israelis, Mohanned says that Israelis enjoy their life, they go out at night, have cafes and nightclubs, travel all over the world, they go to America and Britain but Palestinians can’t even leave Palestine.
The lesson plan then instructs teachsers to check for understanding by asking students to respond to the focus question which is why Mohanned may feel that way. However, the instructions don’t tell teachers to denounce Mohanned’s claims or radical Islamic views in general.
The last section exposes students to another video interview of Mohanned, this time where explains why he didn’t go through with the act. The teachers are instructed to ask their students to share their thoughts on why Mohanned didn’t carry out the plan.
The fourth part asks students to watch a third video interview of an Islamic terrorist. The video includes a terrorist who actually was involved in a suicide bombing. The lesson plan indicates that the video was taken from an interview with 25-year-old Majdi Amer, who in March 2003 built a bomb and prepared a suicide bomber for a bus bombing in Haifa that killed 17 people and wounded 50.
In the interview, Majdi feels that Islam calls for him to defend his land any way he can, he does not recognize the Jewish state, he will kill an Israeli for every Palestinian killed. Mohanned did not see every Jew as an enemy, did not want to kill innocent people, felt that God wanted him to live.
Surprisingly, JP Morgan Chase and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are listed as the sources of funding on the lesson plan’s website, under the credits section. The U.S. federal government funds CPB and it was first created by an act of Congress in 1967, under the leadership of Democratic Party President Lyndon Johnson. The website has plans on various religious groups such as Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism.
