SUICIDE SCHOLARS?

IT sounds like parody, but it's not: Secretary of State Hill ary Clinton last week an nounced a four-year program of US scholarships and "opportunity grants" for "disadvantaged young Palestinians" to attend universities. What next? Mortgage-refinancing seminars for Somali warlords? Universal health-care for at-risk children of homeless (caveless?) al Qaeda refugees? America may have voted last November for diplomacy over war, but Team Obama's taking this outreach thing a bit far. Clinton's scholarships come on the heels of her promise for a $900 million cash-bath for Gaza, that terrorist haven by the sea ruled by militant Hamas. OK, not all Palestinians are terrorists. But Israel's demise is a lot higher on many Palestinians' priority lists than truth-based secular education. Look at what the "moderate" Fatah does: Its textbooks include maps of Israel as part of "Palestine," portray Palestinian battles as an Islamic cause, praise those who kill Americans in Iraq and omit the slaughter of Jews in histories of World War II. (Of course, President Mahmoud Abbas' doctoral disseration referred to "the fantastic lie that 6 million Jews were killed" in the Holocaust.)
Clinton knows this. In a 2007 speech, she boasted of having spoken out "for years" against "the incitement of hate and violence in Palestinian textbooks." She deplored the fact that "children were encouraged to see martyrdom and armed struggle and the murder of innocent people as ideals to strive for." She even slammed Abbas' Palestinian Authority - to which she now promises scholarships - for not repudiating charges that its curriculum amounts to dangerous indoctrination. Sure, some Palestinians are interested in fact-based academic pursuits. The chemistry labs at the Islamic University of Gaza had long been busy beehives - as bomb-making factories. Israel hit them in airstrikes in December. But might Clinton's "scholarships" help in similar "educational" endeavors? ..more..http://www.nypost.com/seven/03132009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/suicide_scholars__159275.htm