New York – Despite the fact that the Bush Administration has increased the amount of US aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its chief Mahmoud Abbas over what the Clinton Administration provided, including a recent additional gift of $50 million in direct aid on August 24, 2005; the PA is promoting horrifying anti-American propaganda, including support for attacks upon American personnel serving in Iraq.
Radio and television sermons by senior PA religious officials in the past week have presented the U.S. as foremost among “heretical” countries and as an evil superpower trying to destroy Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries while plundering their resources. In one sermon, a PA official, in the presence of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, called upon his audience to support the Iraqi terrorist groups killing Americans in Iraq. (Palestinian Media Watch Bulletin, September 6, 2005).
In a sermon on September 2 broadcast by the PA’s Voice of Palestine, Yusuf Abu Sneina, said, “Anyone who watches closely the nature of our world today, can see that the heretical countries — first and foremost, the USA — have succeeded greatly in tearing our Islamic world apart by disintegrating and splitting up more than one Islamic state, intending to weaken it, disperse [its citizens] and plunder its resources. It is terrorism, and there’s no choice but to fight it. As regards Iraq, there is much to say about it.
“The USA has composed a draft of the Iraqi Constitution in a way that it will serve US interests and enhance the disintegration of Iraq’s unity. The new constitution includes federal solutions, which are dividing Iraq into small countries. A federal government hides behind it; the seeds of a future civil war. The USA is planning to rule Saudi Arabia and disintegrate it, too, despite the close friendly relations between the two countries…Is the USA going to fulfill its ambitions and aggressive plans? And, for how long shall the submission and surrender to the plans of the enemies of the [Islamic] nation?”
On the same day, with PA Chief Mahmoud Abbas and other PA senior officials in attendance, Yusuf Jum’a Salamah, the PA Minister of the Waqf and Religious Affairs, delivered the official Friday sermon broadcast on Palestinian television in which he stated, “We say to the dear, heroic Iraqi nation, turn this incident [the accidental death of 1,000 Iraqis] into an opportunity for resisting [term regularly used by PA to describe terrorist attacks] the [American] occupation, for uniting families, for unifying the forces and for opposition to the policy of dismantling Iraq and dividing it geographically.”
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “It is an egregious affront to the U.S. that the PA is openly demonizing the United States, calling it ‘heretical’, a word which suggests that it is nothing less than an enemy of Islam, whom it is necessary and virtuous to attack and destroy.
“We are witnessing an absurd and tragic situation when the U.S., in good faith, delivers hundreds of millions in hard-earned U.S. taxpayers dollars to aid the PA while the PA promotes hatred of America and even support attacks against Americans in Iraq.
“It is completely intolerable that the PA sides openly with America’s enemies and promotes terrorism that results in American soldiers coming back in body bags while the Bush Administration lends the PA political and economic support. If America is to be respected and effective in diplomacy and fighting terrorism, it must at once cease funding the PA, cease congratulating Mahmoud Abbas who has done nothing to stop terror and incitement, until the PA acts forcefully to dismantle the infrastructure of terror and the incitement.
“Imagine if Israeli leaders and rabbis on Israeli TV would be viciously demonizing the United States and its policies, not to mention promoting violence against our troops; there would be a huge outcry and a demand to end all aid to Israel and maybe even relations. At a minimum, the U.S. should make it clear that if this incitement is not condemned and stopped by the PA immediately, funding and negotiations must and will end.”