Incitement ignored by Western govts & media

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has applauded the Canadian Liberal Party Member of Parliament and former Justice Minister and Attorney-General (2003-6), Irwin Cotler, for publicly denouncing the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, for promoting hatred of Jews. Addressing a press conference this week, Cotler, who is also a Professor of Law at Montreal’s McGill University, Opposition Critic for Human Rights and a member of the Canadian House of Commons Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Human Rights, lamented the fact that official PA incitement to hatred and murder is being ignored by Western governments and media outlets. “People don’t realize that Abbas signed a law, on the very day there was a suicide terrorist attack in December 2005 against Israel, providing monthly stipends for the families of suicide bombers. In January 2007, Abbas addressed a large crowd that was estimated as being over 100,000, in which he said ‘the sons of Israel are mentioned in the Koran as those who are corrupting humanity on Earth’ … Abbas has never recognized Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state … [The official PA media promotes anti-Israeli libels and] breeds hatred and contempt for Jews.”

Cotler charged that Abbas’ anti-Israel statements and the hatred promoted by his official outlets have been judiciously ignored by the West and those involved in promoting Middle East peace. Yet, that incitement, Cotler concluded, is “the greatest threat to a just and lasting peace.” Cotler also noted in passing that other parts of the Arab world have bred a similar hatred. The recent ransom agreement between Israel and the Hizballah, in which the Lebanese terror organization released the bodies of two IDF soldiers it had kidnapped in 2006 in exchange for several terrorists held in Israeli jails, was greeted in Lebanon joyously. In Cotler’s view, “Knowing that Israel was in mourning was, tragically, a national day of celebration in Lebanon.” Cotler also said that Hamas, with its Charter’s “genocidal objective, anti-Semitic ideology and terrorist instrumentality,” is therefore not alone in its incitement in the PA public sphere (Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, ‘Canadian MP: Mahmoud Abbas Purveys Anti-Jewish Incitement,’ August 20, 2008).

Some recent examples of incitement in the Abbas-controlled official PA newspaper:

·        “The method employed by the Israeli Occupation in which they [are] instigating slow death … doctors in Israeli prison clinics use the prisoners as guinea pigs for clinical drug testing under the pretense of ‘treatment.'” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 6, 2008).

·        “Many of the male and female inmates received injections from needles they had not seen before, and which caused their hair and facial hair to fall out permanently … others lost their sanity, or their mental condition is constantly deteriorating… and some are suffering from infertility” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 4, 2008).

·        “The doctors in these prison clinics are using the prisoners as guinea pigs for clinical testing of drugs and treatment-methods.” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 3, 2008), translations courtesy of ‘Palestinian Authority Libel: Prisoners are used for Nazi-like medical experiments,’ Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), July 9, 2008).

Abbas’ Fatah has neither abrogated nor amended its Constitution, which calls for the destruction of Israel (Article 12) and the use of terrorism as an indispensable element in the campaign to achieve that goal (Article 19). In fact, late last year, Fatah issued a 43^rd anniversary poster depicting Israel draped in the Palestinian headdress (kfiyyeh), complete with a photograph of arch-terrorists Yasser Arafat and a Kalashnikov rifle. Abbas personally congratulated the family of multiple murderer Samir Kuntar when the latter was released by Israel earlier this year and declared three days of mourning and the flying of the PA flag at half-mast to mark the death of the veteran terrorist leader and pioneer of airplane hijacking and airport massacres, George Habash.

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We applaud Irwin Cotler for his principled and forthright statements on a subject almost everyone seems willing to ignore – the incitement to Nazi-like Jew hatred and murder within the PA-controlled, media, mosques, schools and youth camps that feeds terror. The three recent examples of incitement provided above give a clear indication of the campaign of hatred that the PA wages in order to keep alive the war on Israel.

“The ZOA has been almost alone among American Jewish organizations in raising this issue, in our essays, speeches, press releases, letters and materials. ZOA has repeatedly raised this issue since the start of the Oslo process and the creation of the PA. MP Cotler is among a select few, and almost alone among former Western government officials, who have named Palestinian incitement to hatred and murder as a serious issue preventing the attainment of peace. The examples he cites and others – such as the PA blaming Israel for poisoning water supplies and arable land, faking evidence of the Holocaust, using drugs to destroy Palestinian society and other obscenities – only underscore how Mahmoud Abbas has done nothing to end the incitement to hatred and murder within the PA. Indeed, as ZOA has been pointing out for years, MP Cotler understands and states unequivocally that Abbas has never actually accepted the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state.

“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 newspaper to stop its vicious anti-Jewish incitement.

“We urge the Bush Administration, the media and Jewish organizations to cease ignoring Mahmoud Abbas and the PA’s promotion of Nazi-like incitement to Jew hatred and murder and to make it clear that there should be no concessions to, funds for or negotiations with the PA until and unless this hateful propaganda ends.”