New York – The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the ruling Fatah party, co-founded by Yasser Arafat and Palestinian Authority (PA) chief Mahmoud Abbas, became on Sunday the first Palestinian group to publicly endorse Iran’s call to eliminate Israel. In a leaflet distributed in the Gaza Strip, the group voiced full support for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s statements in which he said that Israel “must be wiped off the map.”

The leaflet by the Fatah group is the first of its kind since the Iranian president’s speech. “We affirm our support and backing for the positions of the Iranian president toward the Zionist state which, by God’s will, will cease to exist,” said the leaflet. The Fatah group also hailed Ahamdinejad’s appeal to the Palestinians to unite their ranks so they would be able to destroy Israel (Jerusalem Post, November 6).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “Iran recently called for Israel to be wiped off the map and it only took a few days for Mahmoud Abbas’ own Fatah to publicly endorse this Iranian call for genocide. Fatah, as we have often pointed out, has been responsible for half the Palestinian terrorism launched against Israel’s civilians since September 2000.

“Like Hamas, it has a charter advocating terrorism and calling for Israel’s destruction. Its existing Charter states that ‘The Israeli existence in Palestine is a Zionist invasion with a colonial expansive base, and it is a natural ally to colonialism and international imperialism’ (Article 8); calls for the ‘Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence’ (Article 12) and says that ‘Armed struggle [i.e. terrorism] is a strategy and not a tactic’ (Article 19).

“It is clear that in order for peace to have a genuine chance, Mahmoud Abbas must disarm Fatah, not only Hamas, and take all necessary steps for Fatah to rescind its charter so that it publicly accepts the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. In the absence of these conditions, the U.S. should cease all negotiations with and financial aid for the PA.”