PA calls for war, accuses Israel of
harvesting Palestinian organs
On the very day that Israel and Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) began negotiations in Washington, D.C., the PA ambassador to Iran, Salah Zawawi, said that the PA will continue its war on Israel until “the complete eradication of the fabricated regime in due course.” Also, a PA Minister threatened war if Israel does not return to its “owners” Jerusalem, which he described as “Palestinian … throughout history.” Another PA Minister honored the families of dead terrorists and accused Israel of harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians.
A PA whose ambassador calls for Israel’s destruction; which denies Jewish history and the Jewish connection to Jerusalem while threatening war it; which honors the families of homicidal terrorists while doing nothing to arrest others; which repeats anti-Semitic slanders about Israel harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians; and which insists it will make no concession in negotiations presently on foot, is an anti-Israel terror-sponsor, not a peace partner with Israel.
The PA ambassador to Iran, Salah Zawawi, said in Tehran that the relentless struggle with the “Zionist occupiers” will continue until liberation of Jerusalem and that “we hope to witness complete eradication of the fabricated regime in due course” (‘Zawawi: Relentless struggle will continue to liberate Holy Qods,’ Islamic Republic News Agency, September 2, 2010).
Also, the PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash, speaking in a Friday sermon delivered in the mosque at Mahmoud Abbas’ office in Ramallah, with Abbas in attendance, and broadcast on PA TV, said, “Unless the issue of Jerusalem is solved, so that it returns to its owners; unless Jerusalem will be Palestinian, as it was throughout history, the capital of the Palestinian state and the capital of the Palestinian people … there is no peace … The term ‘war’ cannot be erased from the lexicon of this region as long as Jerusalem is occupied, as long as Jerusalem is disgraced, as long as the residents of Jerusalem are being targeted. It’s not possible; Jerusalem has to return to its owners. And we are its owners” (PA TV , August 20, 2010, translation courtesy of Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, ‘PA minister threatens war over Jerusalem,’ Palestinian media Watch bulletin, August 30, 2010).
The PA Minister for Prisoner’s Affairs, Issa Karake, bestowed the ‘Shield of Resoluteness & Giving’ upon a Palestinian mother of four sons who are serving a total of 18 life sentences in Israeli prisons. They all killed Israeli civilians in terror attacks. In personally bestowing the honor upon the mother, Karake said, “The Palestinian mother is a central partner in the struggle … It is she who gave birth to the fighters, and she deserves that we bow to her in salute and in honor.” He also “praised the Abu Hamid family as a model of willpower and of the struggle for the independence of Palestine” when he visited the family with a ministry delegation (PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 28, 2010, translation courtesy of Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, ‘Mother of 4 terrorists serving 18 life sentences for murder honored by Palestinian Authority,’ Palestinian Media Watch bulletin, September 1, 2010).
Karake also visited the home of another terrorist, Ayyat Al-Akhras, who in 2002 entered a Jerusalem supermarket and detonated a bomb, murdering two Israelis. Karake’s visit took place on the Palestinian so-called ‘National Day for Returning the Bodies of Palestinian and Arab Shahids and MIAs.’ The report in the PA official newspaper mentioned also that Al-Akhras is buried in an Israeli military cemetery within “’48 occupied land” [i.e., Israel in its pre-1967 borders, which is also regarded as occupied Palestinian land by the PA]. Karake accused Israel of hiding the bodies of the “shahids” to conceal war crimes, “like field executions, abuse of their bodies, and trade or theft of their organs”’ (PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 30, 2010, translation courtesy of Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, ‘Mother of 4 terrorists serving 18 life sentences for murder honored by Palestinian Authority,’ Palestinian Media Watch bulletin, September 1, 2010).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “It is clear from these examples alone that the PA is a promoter of anti-Israel terrorism, murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel, not a partner in peace for Israel. It is not possible for Israel to reach peace with the PA if it honors and rewards families for raising sons who murder Israelis, rather than arrest such terrorists and condemn their vile deeds. It is not possible to have peace with the PA if the PA demonizes Israel as a harvester of body organs of deceased Palestinians. It is not possible to reach a peace agreement with the PA when the PA resolutely takes the position that all Israel is Palestinian, including Jerusalem, and threatens war if all its demands are not met. It is not possible to reach peace if the PA calls for continuing conflict until Israel is destroyed.
“The record is clear – the PA and its official organs, all of which remain under the control of the allegedly moderate, peace-seeking Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah terror organization that he co-founded with Yasser Arafat – broadcast blatant hatred and incitement.
“At the start of this new round of talks, ZOA said that they had virtually no prospects of success. Such events as these only underscore the reason why this is so clearly the case.”
“Rather than pursuing the futile and counter-productive path of praising and funding a terror regime, the Obama Administration should be making it clear that it will neither deal with nor fund the PA until and unless it finally fulfills its 17-year-old signed commitments under the Oslo agreements and the 2003 Roadmap peace plan to jail terrorists, confiscate their weaponry, and end the incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools, and youth camps that feed terror.
“ZOA is also concerned that Abbas may want the current talks to fail in the hope that he can get the UN to approve the creation of a Palestinian state on all the territory lost by Arab aggressors to Israel in the 1967 war; have a general return of Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants to Israel; and have Jerusalem declared the Palestinian capital without having to make a single concession.
“The Obama Administration and the European governments need to make it crystal clear that they will neither accept nor endorse such an outcome.”