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Culture Clash
New report: West Bank Palestinian leaders fortify terror.
P
the Fatah Central Committee, which
alestinian aggression through
works with Palestinian Authority
incitement and terror — not
President Mahmoud Abbas.
via issues involving borders,
“These are the people who will
settlements, refugees, holy sites, water
be determining the policy
rights or Jerusalem — is likely
of Mahmoud Abbas’ party”
the unconquerable obstacle to
and thus “the policy of the
solving the Israeli-Palestinian
Palestinian Authority in
conflict.
the coming years,” Marcus
This drumbeat of hate is
asserted. “Will they lead the
wrought by anti-Israel govern-
Palestinian people toward
ment indoctrination played
peace or continued animosity
out in Palestinian classrooms,
and terror?”
mosques, news outlets, sports
Not surprisingly, evidence
tournaments and music videos. Robert Sklar
points to the latter. That
Undeniably, Israel lacks a legiti-
Contributing Editor
raises red flags in imagining
mate negotiating partner.
peace prospects under current
The Palestinian Authority,
Palestinian leadership.
which governs Palestinian-controlled
The terror wave of 2015-2016 “was
areas of the West Bank, and its lead fac-
not a series of spontaneous lone-wolf
tion, Fatah, leave a lot to be desired as
attacks by isolated Palestinians, but
agents of peace.
rather was the Palestinians’ response to
The blunt reality is that Fatah and
the leadership’s call for violence,” PMW
many of its leaders have openly sup-
concluded in its report.
ported terror as a methodology — both
during the terror wave of 2015-2016
and into 2017. So reports Palestinian
CHILLING DISCOVERY
Media Watch (PMW). The Israel-based
The special report, relates Marcus,
communications watchdog commands
documents “how the Fatah Movement
respect in the West for monitoring
responded to individual Palestinians
Palestinian pronouncements of terror
murdering Israeli civilians in stabbings,
against the Jewish state.
shootings and car-ramming attacks
during the terror wave from September
TAINTED LEADERS
2015 to mid-2016.” It was a gruesome
On March 16, PMW founder and direc-
stretch that saw 40 people murdered
tor Itamar Marcus presented “Fatah
— 36 Israelis, one Palestinian, two
Votes for Terror” to the U.S. House
Americans and one Eritrean, according
Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the
to PMW. Hundreds were wounded.
Middle East. The special report spot-
PMW found the Fatah Movement
lighted those elected last December to
as well as prominent Fatah Central
Committee members “actively support-
ed the terror carried out by individual
Palestinians and publicly encouraged
more attacks.”
Consider these haunting findings:
“Some supported the terror by partici-
pating in or sponsoring activities honor-
ing murderers of civilians. Others justi-
fied the murders of Israelis as accept-
able defense of the Al Aqsa Mosque,
which they claimed was ‘in danger.’
Still others claimed those Palestinian
terrorists who were killed while attack-
ing Israelis were innocents murdered
in cold blood and for no reason by
the Israeli police, who ‘fabricated’ the
attacks.”
PMW found that no Fatah leaders at
any time denounced even one terror
attack or murder during the 2015-2016
terror wave “because they insisted,
and continue to insist, the term terror
can never be applied to any Palestinian
attack or murder of Israelis.”
military arm of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, the Palestinian people’s
lead negotiator and global represen-
tative, recently marked 52 years as a
movement.
Even President Abbas has repeatedly
justified terrorist murders, saying after
14 Israelis had already been killed and
dozens injured in the 2015-2016 wave:
“We want peaceful, popular uprising,
and that’s what this is. That’s what this
is.”
He said that on official PA TV on Nov.
16, 2015. That’s a stunning worldview of
peaceful uprising.
This is the Palestinian leader much of
the world, including the U.S., considers
moderate enough to negotiate with.
The JN hasn’t budged in its support
of a two-state solution to the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. But we’re resigned
to that way forward never gaining trac-
tion until Palestinian leaders and the
culture they represent realign toward a
desire for real peace.
NO LET UP
The PMW report contains examples of
how Fatah continues to brazenly incite
and glorify terror with no regard for, or
perhaps in defiance of, international
consequences.
One post cited from Fatah’s official
Facebook page on Feb. 7, 2017, under-
scores this horrific wish: “We march; we
are not afraid of the fire and we do not
fear death. With blood, we will redeem
the homeland and saturate its ground.
The anniversary is approaching.”
Fatah, which began as the principal
FANTASY TIME
In a March 16 interview with the
Qatar newspaper Al Watan, President
Abbas said he hopes U.S. President
Donald Trump finds resolution to
“the Palestinian issue after 70 years of
occupation” — a solution “based on
two states, a Palestinian state that will
live in security and peace alongside the
State of Israel.”
That’s well put, but illusory.
Four days earlier, Abbas declared that
Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank
continued on page 8
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