A Monday editorial in the main PA daily newspaper shows the extent to which the war against Israel is waged on the “incitement” front.
The Ramallah-based Al-Hayat Al-Jadida referred to last week’s terrorist attack in which a Hamas member and resident of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan rammed his car into a crowd of Jews and killed two, including an infant. The paper calls it a “traffic accident” that Israel is “exploiting” in order to “exacerbate the oppression in Jerusalem and to incite against the PA.”
MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) published a translation of the editorial, which is replete with lies of the type the Palestinian Arab public is constantly exposed to.
Excerpts:
“Three months ago, Israel used the kidnapping of the three settlers as an excuse to wage its cruel war on Gaza for 51 days. [Israel’s] original plan was to wage this war against the West Bank, which is [meant to be] the central region of the independent Palestinian state, whose capital is East Jerusalem… But the murder of the boy Muhammad Abu Khdeir… caused Israel to ‘escape forward’ [i.e., dodge the issue by creating a new crisis], as usual, by using the only tool it knows how to use, namely war, which it waged against Gaza with unprecedented brutality…
“Israel has [now] once again chosen the option of ‘escaping forward’ by inventing crises and escalating the violence, this time in the geographical epicenter of the Palestinian national enterprise – East Jerusalem. It arranged for settlers to attack the Al-Aqsa [mosque], while concurrently announcing new settlement projects in the holy city. In addition, it recently invented another excuse, as it does so well, when it presented a traffic accident caused by the martyr Al-Shaloudi as a terrorist attack [to justify] yet another escalation of the violence, in what looks like the beginning of another cruel war, this time against Jerusalem and its [Arab] residents…”
Incitement of this nature has oft been cited as a primary cause of Palestinian terrorism, extremism, and refusal to come to terms with Israel.
The IDF spokesman has summed it up as follows: “The Palestinian Authority incites the Palestinian people with no inhibitions, beginning in kindergartens, through schools, mosques, on official radio and television stations. Thus, the PA cannot evade direct responsibility for the brutal and murderous violence and terror against Israel and its armed forces.”
Palestinian Media Watch, which monitors and publicizes anti-Israel incitement in PA media and schools, has explained, “…world media keep portraying reality as if the PA has peaceful intentions. However, the PA school books and media are full of incitement to hate and violence, glorification of terrorists, denial of Israel’s right to exist as well as demonization of Jews and Israelis… Unless hate education and incitement is stopped, it will destroy any chance for peace.”
Simultaneously with the above editorial, both Hamas and Fatah issued announcements acknowledging – and praising – the terrorist nature of the car attack. Fatah happily congratulated the terrorist, on its Facebook page, for his “nuptials” – a reference to the heavenly reward he expects for having murdered Jews. One of several similar Hamas statements praised the terrorist, acknowledging that he was a member of Hamas, and terming the incident “a natural and expected reaction to Israel’s violations and growing aggression against the [Arab] residents and the holy places…” It also called to “unite efforts and forces and direct them at defending the holy city.”
