by Bassam TawilThe Biden administration... can continue to dream about
"revamping" the PA, but... every Palestinian child knows
that this will never happen as long as Palestinian leaders
continue to pay handsomely for the murder of Jews and
call for the elimination of Israel. Pictured: On July 23, 2018,
at a ceremony honoring Palestinian terrorists, Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said: "We will neither
reduce nor withhold the allowances of the families of
martyrs, prisoners, and released prisoners... if we had one
single penny left, we would spend it on the families of the
martyrs and the prisoners." (Image source:
MEMRI)
As the Biden administration continues to promote the idea
of having a "
revitalized" Palestinian Authority (PA) govern
the Gaza Strip the day after the current Israel-Hamas war,
PA leaders are again proving why they are not much
different from the Iran-backed Islamist terrorists who want
to destroy Israel and murder Jews.
After the January 2 assassination in Beirut, Lebanon, of
Saleh al-Arouri, deputy head of the Hamas "political
bureau," who was behind countless terroir attacks against
Israelis over the past decade, PA leaders were quick to
praise him as a "martyr" and a "hero" and condemn Israel
for allegedly killing the top Hamas terrorist. This glorification
of an arch-terrorist is nothing less than a full endorsement
of Hamas's Jihad (holy war) on Israel, as outlined in its
1988 charter, which states that "Jihad is its path and death
for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes." (
Article 8)
This is the same PA whose leaders continue to meet on a
regular basis with senior Biden administration officials to
discuss scenarios for the day after the Israel-Hamas war.
Biden administration officials have made no secret of their
desire to see a supposedly "revamped" Palestinian
Authority replace Hamas as the ruler of the Gaza Strip.
It is worth noting that in 2018 the US Department of State's
Rewards for Justice Program offered
rewards of up to $5
million each for information leading to the identification or
location of al-Arouri and Lebanese Hezbollah leaders
Khalil Yusif Mahmoud Harb and Haytham Ali Tabataba'i.
Al-Arouri, who funded and directed Hamas military
operations in the West Bank, has been linked to several
terrorist attacks, hijackings, and kidnappings. He
announced Hamas's responsibility for the June 12, 2014
terrorist attack in which three Israeli Jewish teenagers,
including the US-Israeli citizen Naftali Fraenkel, were
kidnapped and murdered.
The Biden administration has yet to spell out what it means
when it talks about a "revitalized" Palestinian Authority.
If the Biden administration is hoping that the PA leadership
will halt its ongoing campaign of incitement against Israel
in the mosques, media and the rhetoric of Palestinian
officials, it is living in a dream world. If the Biden
administration believes that the PA, as part of a
"revitalization" process, will cease its endless glorification
of terrorists and stop systematically rewarding them with
monthly stipends for murdering Israelis, it is also in for a
rude awakening.
Shortly after the killing of al-Arouri, PA President Mahmoud
Abbas's ruling Fatah faction issued a
statement condemning the "cowardly assassination" and praising the
Hamas terrorist as a "prominent Palestinian national figure,
fighter and martyr." According to Fatah, "the martyrdom of
al-Arouri hurt the feelings of all Palestinians." Fatah also
called for a general strike in the West Bank on January 3
to mourn the death of al-Arouri and other Hamas terrorists.
Fatah Central Committee Secretary-General Jibril Rajoub,
who is closely associated with Abbas, called Hamas leader
Ismail Haniyeh to offer his
condolences over the
"martyrdom" of al-Arouri, saying: "With the martyrdom of
Saleh al-Arouri, Palestine lost one of its faithful sons and
fighters who devoted his life to serving the Palestinian
cause."
PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh also hailed
al-Arouri as a "
martyr" and extended his condolences to
Hamas and the Palestinians. Shtayyeh also asked God
to "cover [al-Arouri] with his vast mercy and accept him in
Paradise."
In the West Bank city of Jenin, Jamal Hawil, a senior
Fatah official, led a
demonstration to denounce the killing
of al-Arouri, whom he labeled as a "martyr."
Hawil also praised Hamas's October 7 massacre, in which
the terrorist group more than 1,200 Israelis were murdered,
more than 5,000 wounded, and more than 240 kidnapped
and taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip.
He
emphasized that al-Arouri had inspired the upsurge in
anti-Israel terrorism activities in the West Bank:
"Saleh al-Arouri called on the Palestinian youths [in the
West Bank] to resist with stones, Molotov cocktails, pistols,
and explosive devices. Our armed factions will teach
[Israel] a painful lesson."
It should come as no surprise that Abbas and other PA
leaders have long been
glorifying terrorists by calling them
"martyrs" and "heroes." In 2021, Abbas called to console
the families of two Palestinian terrorists who were killed
while attacking Israelis. Abbas
told the father of one of the
terrorists:
"Allah will increase your reward over our martyr [Israa
Khzaimiah], the Palestinian people's martyrs. Allah will let
her dwell in Paradise, and certainly her place is in Paradise
because she is a martyr of Palestine and Jerusalem. I
always bow to our male and female heroes."
Since the brutal Hamas massacres of Israelis on October
7, the atrocities have been
celebrated by at least 11
Palestinian schools, including eight run by the PA,
according to the Institute for Monitoring Peace and
Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se).
In one example, the Ya'abad Boys Secondary School
(near Jenin)
told parents that it would be closed on
October 18 "out of respect for the pure blood of our
martyrs. God punish the Jews and those who support
them."
Similarly, the Adnan Zaki al-Safarini Boys High School in
Tulkarm staged a
demonstration on October 12 praising
Hamas's massacre, with a video showing a male student's
speech, entitled: "A day that will live forever in the history
of the Arab Palestinian struggle... the day of al-Aqsa Flood
[the name Hamas uses for its October 7 atrocities[."
IMPACT-se noted:
"It appears that many schools across the Palestinian
Territories have seized the opportunity of the October 7
attacks to celebrate the massacre, glorifying Hamas
terrorists and lauding their bravery and sacrifice. The
imagery of gliders, used by Hamas militants to carry out
the atrocity, is specially invoked in some instances,
including a social media post from one school showing
second-grade students coloring in drawings which depicted
Hamas terrorists on gliders, made by their art teacher,
featuring the words 'Glorious Gaza.' Many schools also
took this opportunity to disseminate expressly anti-Semitic
messages, wishing God to 'punish the Jews' or calling the
Jews 'prophet killers' in the tradition of ant-Semitic deicide
accusations. These findings indicate that the next
generation of Palestinians are being desensitized to
violence and death, to see Jews and Israelis as inhuman
creatures, and to perceive their own death in battle as an
utmost goal. In light of this, one cannot escape the
conclusion that should the status quo of Palestinian
education continue, the next atrocity is all but assured."
If the Palestinian Authority were to be allowed to return to
the Gaza Strip, as the Biden administration wants, it would
continue its decades-long path of education for terror.
Abbas and his PA leadership would do exactly what Hamas
has been doing in the Gaza Strip for the past two decades:
raise yet another generation of Palestinians on Jew-hating
messages and the glorification of terrorists.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, can continue to
dream about "revamping" the PA, but every Palestinian
child knows that this will never happen as long as
Palestinian leaders continue to finance the murder of Jews
and call for the elimination of Israel. It is time for the Biden
administration to understand that there is no real difference
between those who perpetrate terrorist attacks and those
who encourage them, glorify them and pay terrorists
bountifully for each murder.
As the Biden administration doubtless knows, replacing
Hamas with the PA will change nothing in the Gaza Strip.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
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