The Zionist Organization of America has pointed to several stunning examples of the continuing virulent hate propaganda and incitement to hatred and violence suffusing Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) during the last two weeks. In this two week period,

·         Adli Sadeq, the PLO ambassador to India, welcomed the August 18 terrorist attacks in southern Israel, which claimed the lives of eight Israelis, saying, “May Allah have mercy upon the Shahids [Martyrs] who fell during Ramadan, those of them who went out to confront the occupation forces [i.e., Israel] and did not return, and those of them who were bombed in the home of Khaled Shaath [commander of unit manufacturing rockets and bombs in the Popular Resistance Committees] and died a Shahid’s death … [this was] one of the most successful infiltration operations … this was a quality operation.” Other PA officials and publications also referred to the terrorists as “martyrs” and heroes, the terrorist attacks were described as an “operation,” the Israeli retaliation targeting the terrorist group implicated in the attacks, the Popular Resistance Committees, were labeled a “massacre” and the terrorist thus killed were also called “martyrs.’  (PA official daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 20, 2011, translation in Palestinian Media Watch bulletin, The Palestinian Authority on the terror attacks in Southern Israel that killed 8 Israelis; and on the Israeli response,’ August 24, 2011). Other PA publications also referred to the terrorists as ‘martyrs’ and heroes.

·         Official PA TV broadcast a “documentary” which stated that the PA plans to build an Arab residential area in place of the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem. The documentary narrator said, “They [Israelis] know for certain that our [Palestinian] roots are deeper than their false history. We, from the balcony of our home, look out over [Islamic] holiness and on sin and filth [Jews’ praying at Western Wall] in an area that used to have [Arab] people and homes. We are drawing our new maps. When they [Israelis] disappear from the picture, like a forgotten chapter in the pages of our city’s history, we will build it anew [as a residential area]. The Mughrabi Quarter will be built here” (PA TV (Fatah), translation in Palestinian Media Watch bulletin, ‘The PA denies Jewish history in Jerusalem: The Jewish Temple is “the alleged Temple,”’Aug. 10, 2011).

·         A PA daily news report on “The destruction of the alleged Temple” stated, “Since Monday morning, groups of extremist Jews have been roaming the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque [i.e., the Temple Mount] one after the other, under heavy police protection, on the occasion of the [week of the] so-called “destruction of the Temple” … This Sunday, the occupation’s police handed the shop owners in the Market of the Cotton Merchants … which leads to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, an order forcing them to close their shops on Monday afternoon [i.e., the eve of the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple – Tisha B’av], in order to facilitate the arrival of the settlers to the Market, for the sake of holding special Talmudic rituals on the occasion of the destruction of the alleged Temple” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 9, 2011, translation in Palestinian Mmedia Watch bulletin, ‘‘The PA denies Jewish history in Jerusalem: The Jewish Temple is “the alleged Temple,”’Aug. 10, 2011).

The PA, including senior PA officials and PA-appointed clerics, have a long history of denying the Jewish historical and religious connection to Israel and Jerusalem and denying the prior existence of the biblical temples in Jerusalem.