Gov’t cites spike in Palestinian incitement before week of terror
The study found a sharp rise in calls by Hamas to attack Israelis in the West Bank in October and November.
By LAHAV HARKOVUpdated: DECEMBER 18, 2018 01:13Israel depicted as killing children in a Palestinian cartoon (photo credit: STRATEGIC AFFAIRS MINISTRY PALESTINIAN INCITEMENT REPORT)
Hamas and Palestinian Authority Presiden Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah increased their inciting rhetoric in recent months, ahead of last week’s wave of terrorism in the West Bank, according to a new report by the Strategic Affairs Ministry.The study found a sharp rise in calls by Hamas to attack Israelis in the West Bank in October and November. Last week, Palestinian terrorists killed three Israelis, including a three-day-old boy whose birth was induced after a Hamas member shot the baby’s pregnant mother, and injured several others.The themes mentioned in the report are not new, and while the ministry did not cite specific numbers, it said “support for terrorism and its extolment are at all-time highs in the PA.”The report gave examples of senior Palestinian officials taking part in the incitement, including Abbas stating his support for terrorists in Israeli prisons. On November 18, Abbas met with the mother and brother of Karim Yunis, an Israeli-Arab member of the Fatah Central Committee who was involved in kidnapping and murdering Avraham Bromberg in 1980. Yunis is in an Israeli prison.Abbas also told the PLO Central Council in October that “the salaries of our martyrs, prisoners and injured are a redline,” in reference to payments made to Palestinian terrorists in prison or to their families. “They try all means and still pressure us not to pay them… and we will not allow this… We must pay them all; even if one penny will be left in our hands, it is intended for them and not for the living.”PLO Executive Committee Secretary Saeb Erekat participated in an event in honor of terrorists released from prison, together with Palestinian Education Minister Tzabari Zaid. A similar event, with Zaid in attendance, was broadcast on Palestinian television and featured a visit by the prisoners to a kindergarten.Among the Strategic Affairs Ministry’s findings was that the usually-competitive Fatah and Hamas showed a united front.“Hamas is not a terrorist organization. It is fighting for a just cause like any other liberation movement,” Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki said this month. “It is the right of every people under occupation to act in all ways of resistance; Fatah and Hamas are in the same boat in the struggle against Israel. It is necessary that there be a price for occupation, through popular resistance, boycotts, and through international tribunals.”The report also cited a Hamas campaign calling to “kill the Israelis every month,” saying “the resistance pays off,” with depictions of masked men with bloodstains symbolizing the blood of Jews.“Heroes of the West Bank are carrying out an intifada again,” read another Hamas graphic.
The terrorist group also launched hashtag campaigns on social media, including “Return_of_attacks” and “Attrition_Against_the_Occupation.”A repeated theme in Hamas and Fatah officials’ messaging was opposing normalization between Israel and Arab states.“Those who normalize with the occupation shall be burned together with the apes and swine,” senior Hamas official in Gaza Ismail Rajual said on November 5. “Do you know who the apes and swine are? These are the Jews, erased by God… They shall be burned together with the Jews… Jews and Zionists are your enemy, and the enemy of the Arab and Islamic nation.”Fatah Revolutionary Council member Moufiq Mattar wrote an article in the PA daily Al-Hayat al-Jadidah in October, lamenting that Israeli sports teams have been able to play in Arab countries, under the Israeli flag and with their national anthem being played. “Oh Arabs, we must take an example from the BDS movement,” Mattar wrote.Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said the report shows that Abbas and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh “are united in their support for terrorism.“One sends terrorists to murder Israelis and the other pays the terrorists’ families,” Erdan said. “The Palestinian Incitement Report… exposes the murderous incitement spread by the PA and Hamas.”Erdan called on European countries to stop sending aid to the PA “until Abbas stops spreading murderous incitement.”
