A Fatah MP has explained that Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ condemnation of the massacre of five Jews in a Jerusalem synagogue was uttered for diplomatic purposes, reported Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) Sunday.

The MP explained to Quds Net News Agency that Abbas’ movement Fatah “justified the statements of the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, who condemned the Jerusalem operation. Fatah member of PA Parliament Najat Abu-Bakr said that those statements were made within a diplomatic context…. [he] is forced to speak this way to the world.”

Earlier, Fatah posted on its Facebook page a video of ex-PLO chairman Yasser Arafat’s bodyguard saying that Arafat lied when he condemned terror, and that he had no choice but to do so, for diplomatic reasons.

Fatah wrote that watching that video – which was taken from the Palestinian Media Watch website and included the PMW subtitles – explains why Abbas condemned the synagogue massacre.