Itamar Marcus
Palestinian Media Watch, Nov 12, 2023
“Tragically, Abbas and the Fatah party put themselves firmly behind Hamas and its atrocities, celebrating the massacres, and even laughing at the victims.”
There are terrorists and there are terror multipliers. Hamas committed the terror atrocity when it sent more than 2,000 terrorists into Israel torturing, murdering, decapitating, raping, burning people alive, and kidnapping 240 hostages. But it is the PA and Fatah by giving unrestrained support to Hamas’ massacre who have helped galvanize the entire Palestinian population behind the ISIS-like atrocities and behind Hamas.
A Fatah leader on official PA TV celebrated the massacre of women and babies as “a morning of victory, and morning of joy, a morning of pride,” and called in the name of Fatah “to all our Palestinian people to take action and participate in this story of heroism.” [Official PA TV, Oct. 8, 2023] PA and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas justified the massacres as the Palestinian “right to self-defense” and called Israel’s counterattack “Israeli escalation against our people.” [WAFA, Oct. 7, 2023] PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh’s response to Hamas’ atrocities was calling it: “a natural result” of Israel’s “crimes.” [WAFA, Oct. 7, 2023] And the PA’s official news agency WAFA publicized Fatah’s call to Palestinians to join the terror, “… to escalate the confrontation in all arenas.” [WAFA, Oct. 7, 2023] Even deep into the fighting when the extent of the atrocities was known, Fatah officials continued to refer to the slaughter as “the heroic operation.” [Al-Mashhad TV (Dubai), Oct. 17, 2023]
The PA/Fatah missed a unique opportunity to change course, renounce terror, and finally offer the Palestinians an alternative. After many years of promoting, supporting, and rewarding terror, and educating children to see themselves as future terrorists, the unspeakable barbarism of their political rivals Hamas, created for PA/Fatah a unique opening to send a message to the Palestinian people about the evil of terror. Abbas’ PA and Fatah could have condemned Hamas, condemned the indescribable horrors, and told their people to make a choice: continue the old way of atrocity and terror represented henceforth by Hamas alone, or choose a new path of peace – represented henceforth by Fatah alone. … [To read the full article, click here]