Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas last week addressed a group of visiting Harvard students. In his remarks he told the students that he believes in “peace and security for everyone” and has joined the “war on terror in all its forms, variations and sources.”
Abbas spoke in Arabic and his remarks were simultaneously translated into English for his overseas guests.
But in a report disseminated Tuesday, Palestinian Media Watch said that Abbas’ remarks to the Harvard students contradicted remarks made the day before by his deputy, Mahmoud Al-Aloul. A day before, Al-Aloul praised the terrorist Omar Abu Laila, who last month murdered a 19-year-old soldier and a 47-year-old father of 12.
“We are extremely proud [of] this Omar Abu Laila [who]….. represents all young Palestinians,” Al-Aloul wrote on the official Fatah Facebook page.
“This is a well-rehearsed modus operandi in the Palestinian Authority,” said Nan Jacques Zilberdik, a senior analyst at PMW.
She said that in 2014, PMW exposed that when Abbas spoke with Israeli students he talked about the shared desire for peace, but previously, when he spoke to Palestinians he praised the murderer of two Israeli students as a “heroic brother.”