Recently, the violence in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has been accompanied by increased anti-Israel propaganda in the U.S. and international media. The Palestinians have been successful yet again in blaming Israel for the recent cycle of violence by distorting the perception of events in the region. In order to counteract this negatively skewed portrait of Israel, we provide these responses to the most prevalent charges being made by the Palestinians. Many of these answers can be applied to a variety of anti-Israel charges expressed in different forms. Please use them in the following ways to help the hazbarah (public relations) effort:

1. Talk to ten people about the actual situation in Israel.

2. Monitor your local media and correct – through letters to the editor/television producer – any factual errors and propaganda that is advanced as an impartial analysis of the situation.

3. Share these talking points and encourage others to join this effort supporting the State of Israel.

A. The Mitchell Commission Report recommends a total freeze on Israeli settlements, labeling them as "provocative" to the Palestinians during this time.

1. There is no moral equivalence between Palestinian violence and Israeli settlements. "Settlement activity" is a non-violent enterprise, comprised of building and construction activity.

2. Israel and the Palestinians included the question of the settlements as one of the five "final status" issues in the 1993 Oslo Accords. These five issues were the most difficult to resolve, and thus were to be concluded through negotiations after various intermediary, confidence-building steps.

3. In July 2000 at the Camp David Summit, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the most sweeping, painful Israeli concessions in order to achieve an end to the conflict with the Palestinians. Barak offered to consolidate the settlements, ceding to the Palestinians up to 98 percent of the West Bank, and 100 percent of the Gaza Strip. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rejected these offers, and did not engage in negotiations. Instead, he called for the Palestinian Authority to plan, mobilize for, and implement violence against Israel, according to Palestinian Communications Minister Imad Al-Falouji, who boasted about this plan in December 2000.

B. Palestinian Claim: Israel is slaughtering innocent Palestinian children.

1. Children on both sides of the conflict have been killed in the violence. Any child's death is a tragedy, and the Jewish people mourn the loss of all lives – but especially those of children. However, the underlying causes of these deaths are different on the Palestinian side and the Israeli side.

2. Throughout the present conflict, the Palestinian Authority has encouraged children to participate as combatants against Israelis. Children as young as 5 years old are trained in paramilitary youth groups and summer camps and are indoctrinated to hate Israelis and Jews via the PA-controlled media and school curriculum. They are told that they will become "martyrs" if they die fighting the Israelis, that they will ascend to heaven, and that their family will be monetarily compensated for their "heroism."

3. The PA has deliberately employed a strategy that uses children as human shields to attack previously agreed-upon Israeli military positions in a 4-stage battle formation. The American Academy of Pediatrics has condemned this deliberate use of children in battle by the PA.

4. While the majority of injured Palestinian children have been cynically used as human shields or combatants, others have been injured during Israeli retaliations to Palestinian military attacks. These deaths would not have occurred if the Palestinians did not initiate attacks against negotiated Israeli positions, Israeli settlements, Israeli towns and villages within the pre-1967 borders, or innocent Israeli civilians. Israel has not initiated any attack, but only has retaliated against PA installations that are used as staging areas for attacks against Israel. These include PA police stations that are used to launch mortar attacks against Israeli towns and villages, or the Voice of Palestine radio station that incites anti-Israel violence.

5. Israeli children have been killed in deliberate terror attacks against innocent civilians. In some cases, Israeli children themselves have been the intentional targets of these attacks. For example, the murders of 10-month old Shelhevet Pass, who was shot in the head by a PA police sniper, and two 14-year old boys, Yosef (Yossi) Ish-Ran and Ya'acov (Kobi) Mandell, who were beaten to death and their bodies mutilated in a cave outside Tekoa.

C. Palestinian Claim: Israel is violating the Oslo Accords by illegally entering into "Area A" (area under Palestinian civil and military control).

1. All sovereign countries have the right and the responsibility to protect and defend their citizens. Israel is exercising this responsibility, in order to ensure that Israeli citizens are safe and free to participate fully in a democratic society.

2. Israel and the Palestinians committed in signed documents to resolve any disagreements through negotiations, and not on the battlefield. Israel fulfilled these commitments by withdrawing its troops from agreed-upon areas and re-deploying others until further negotiations determined their next positions. These Israeli actions are in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which state that a final peace accord should be based on the principle of "land for peace," but does not outline how much land.

3. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat committed to renounce violence, counteract terrorism, promote a peaceful and democratic society, cooperate with Israeli security, arrest, prosecute and jail individuals suspected of perpetuating terrorist activity, reduce anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement, and facilitate co-existence with the State of Israel. The PA has violated every one of these commitments.

4. Israel's temporary incursions into "Area A" are only in response to PA attacks against sovereign Israeli territory or Israeli citizens. The objectives are limited, the targets are well defined, and Israel has withdrawn fully in each occasion. These attacks are analogous to mortar attacks on U.S. territory or U.S. citizens from Canada or Mexico.

D. Palestinian Claim: This is a random, spontaneous, popular uprising, and therefore PA Chairman Yasser Arafat cannot control or halt the violence.

1. This violence is not spontaneous. According to Palestinian Communications Minister Imad Al-Falouji, Arafat ordered the PA to plan and implement this cycle of violence after rejecting Israel's concessions at the July 2000 Camp David Summit.

2. This violence is not random. Each act of violence falls into one of the following areas, and is part of a strategy to gain Israeli concessions through violence, instead of at the negotiation table.

Israeli settlements that were identified to be dismantled by former Israeli Prime Minister Barak as part of his Camp David concessions, or Israeli citizens living in those settlements.

Various portions of Jerusalem, such as the southern neighborhood of Gilo that borders the PA-controlled areas, or the internal neighborhood of Mea Shearim in the heart of the city.

Areas within Israel's sovereign territory that are located in narrowest portion of the country, where the majority of the population lives. This includes the towns of Hadera, Kfar Saba, and other places where terrorist bombs have been detonated.

Israeli towns and villages close to the Gaza Strip, within sovereign Israeli territory, at a steadily increasing distance from PA areas.

Israeli military positions in the West Bank or Gaza Strip that were agreed upon in the signed Israeli/Palestinian documents. These positions would have been removed under Prime Minister Barak's proposed Camp David concessions that Arafat rejected.

3. This violence is not popular. Unlike the Intifada that began in 1987, support for this cycle of violence does not permeate Palestinian society. The violence is perpetrated by the Tanzim, trained, paramilitary youth that are associated with Yasser Arafat's Al-Fatah group; members of the Palestinian police; and the poorest, most disenfranchised segments of Palestinian society. The Palestinian middle class is not participating in the violence.