The Palestinian Authority (PA) security chief, Tewfik Al-Tirawi, has claimed on Arabic television that Israel recruits Palestinians to sexually harass their own mothers and sisters as part of a comprehensive strategy to harm Palestinians.
In an interview on Abu Dhabi television, Al-Tirawi said:
“We in the occupied land, the people under occupation, have a great war with the Israelis – a war that is as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than a war of cannons and tanks. In a [regular] war, you kill ten or twenty people and then there is a cease fire. But in this case, the war is ongoing, and its goal is to destroy the very foundations of [Palestinian] society. This is a war of security, of economics, of society, and of culture. I want to make one thing known to the whole world: Israel is doing one of the most dangerous things possible. It seeks to lead Palestinian society to [sexual] harassment, in order to turn it into a social phenomenon that will destroy Palestinian society.
Interviewer: What exactly do you mean? Could you clarify this?
Tawfiz Tirawi: What I mean is that [Israel] recruits some lowlife, and sends him with instructions to harass his sister or his mother. This is not done in order to obtain information, but in order to destroy the infrastructure of Palestinian society” (Tewfik Tirawi, member of the Fatah Central Committee, Abu Dhabi TV, November 15, 2009, ‘PA Security Chief Tewfik Al-Tirawi: Israel Recruits Palestinians to Sexually Harass Their Sisters and Mothers,’ Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), November 15, 2009).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “This is simply the latest example of another Palestinian blood libel against Israel and the Jewish people. Tragically, because it is said to Arabs, in Arabic, and not to Westerners in English, these hateful, vile and monstrous assaults on the name of the Jewish people receive precious little attention, especially where it matters most – among leaders of Western democracies, including the United States.
“PA officials have previously blamed Jews for poisoning water supplies and arable land, faking evidence of the Holocaust, using drugs to destroy Palestinian society and other obscenities – and this only underscores how Mahmoud Abbas has done nothing to end the incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques schools and youth camps that feed terrorism.
“Abbas sometimes claims that he does not have a sufficiently large security force to combat terrorism. But he does not need a security force to order his own senior PA officials from uttering calumnies like these, or to stop PA newspapers from publishing outrageous lies, or to fire clerics who incite hatred in their sermons. All he needs to do is give the order. But then the ZOA has no expectation of a man like Abbas who is himself a Holocaust denier and who told a Fatah rally in Ramallah in 2007 that ‘The sons of Israel are mentioned as those who are corrupting humanity on earth.’
“We urge the Obama Administration and the Netanyahu government to cease ignoring the reality of Abbas’ extremism and lack of credibility as a peace partner – as we have also urged recently Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to do – and to sever all ties to him and his corrupt, terror-supporting and anti-peace regime. We also urge them to demand of Abbas that he publicly repudiate this blood libel uttered by his own security official.”