An op-ed published in the official Palestinian Authority newspaper, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, accused Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, of orchestrating Friday’s terror attacks in Paris and equated Israel with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), The Times of Israel reported on Sunday.
“It is not a coincidence that human blood was exploded in Paris at the same time that certain European sanctions are beginning to be implemented against settlement products, and while France leads Europe in advising the [UN] Security Council that will implement the two-state solution, Palestine and Israel — which the Israelis see as a warning of sudden danger coming from the direction of Europe, where the Zionist, occupying, settling endeavor was born…” the piece states.
“The wise and correct thing is to look for who benefits,” the op-ed continues. “In short: They need to search the last place reached by the octopus arms of the Mossad… It is clear that its ‘Mossad’ will burn Beirut and Paris in order to achieve [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s goals. He, who challenged the master of the White House, hides in his soul enough evil to burn the world.”
Palestinian Media Watch, the media monitoring group that initially translated the article, also highlighted an image equating Israel with ISIS that was posted Saturday on the official Facebook page of Fatah, the political party headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Fatah movement posted the above image with the headline “Terror is terror.” Fatah implied that Israel is the equivalent of Islamic State by showing the Palestinian flag next to the flags of Russia, Lebanon and France. The flags refer to recent ISIS terror attacks that took place in and against these countries: the explosion on a Russian plane in Egypt that killed everyone on board, in total 224 (Oct. 31, 2015), a double suicide bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed at least 41 and wounded over 200 (Nov. 12, 2015), and the attacks in Paris, France, which killed 129 and wounded over 300 in several simultaneous shooting and suicide bombing attacks (Nov. 13, 2015).
The inflammatory op-ed and graphic are the latest examples of ongoing incitement by the PA against Israel. Top PA leaders, including Abbas, Palestinian Sports Union chief Jibril Rajoub, and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat have all promoted hatred of the Jewish state.
In September, Abbas called on Palestinians to prevent Jews from “defiling” Jerusalem’s holy places with their “filthy feet.” His comments drew criticism from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who expressed concern that Abbas’ inflammatory rhetoric was increasing tensions in Jerusalem.
Earlier this month, 369 members of the United States House of Representatives signed a letter charging PA leaders with encouraging “more acts of terror,” and calling on them “to take concrete steps to avoid further violence.” Previously, the House voted unanimously to condemn the PA for its incitement.
In The Palestinian Endgame?, which was published in October 2015, Tower editors Ben Cohen and Benjamin Kerstein explained that the incitement that dominates the public rhetoric of Palestinian leadership is a product of modern Palestinian nationalism.
The modern Palestinian national movement, from its inception, was a terrorist movement that aimed to extinguish Israel as a sovereign Jewish state through “hatred and brutality.” It claimed thousands of Israeli and non-Israeli lives in shootings, suicide bombings, aircraft hijackings, and innumerable other war crimes and acts of inhuman violence. Though Abbas says he has rejected the use of violence, he frequently incites against Israel and the Jewish people, while attacks carried out by Fatah-affiliated terrorist factions include the cold-blooded murder, on October 1, of a young couple in front of their four young children while they were driving in the West Bank. Many other factions of the Palestinian national movement remain equally committed to violence, and the Islamist Hamas movement—which came to power in Gaza in 2007—remains openly genocidal in its stance toward the Jewish state.
[Photo: Yonatan Sindel / Flash90 ]