Tuesday, December 01, 2015

01-Dec-15: PA president: When the subject is terror, double-talk and blatant hypocrisy work

PA president Abbas tells the Climate Change conference in Paris
on Monday that Israel is to blame "for all the ecological problems
in the occupied Palestinian territories" [Source
Not for the first time, we owe a debt of gratitude to the people at Palestinian Media Watch. Without their monitoring and translating of Arabic-language materials emanating from the PA regime, most people would be left to believe what the autocratic Mahmoud Abbas (elected to a four-year term as PA president almost 11 years ago) says when speech-writers prepare his comments in the English language. His Arabic speeches are considerably more revealing.

A PMW bulletin issued today [here] throws valuable light on why no one in the Palestinian Authority leadership - and certainly not Abbas who controls it - has expressed condemnation, shock, horror or revulsion at the daily acts of violence against Israeli civilians that got into high gear at the end of September.

Out of one side of his mouth, the English-speaking side that finds its way into press releases and evening news programs, he declares his opposition to terror:
  • Abbas "reiterated Palestine’s solidarity with the French people and sincere condolences to all countries affected by terrorism... We strongly condemn these terrorist and barbaric acts, which require genuine efforts to combat terrorism in all its forms and everywhere in the world." [Speech to this week's Climate Change conference in Paris, reported via Palestine National News]
  • "[T]he PLO affirmed its choice of peace as a strategic option and of a solution resulting from negotiations, it firmly repudiated violence and affirmed an ethical, principled rejection of terrorism in all its forms..." [Speech to the UN General Assembly, September 26, 2013] 
  • "The PLO and the Palestinian people adhere to the renouncement of violence and rejection and condemning of terrorism in all its forms..." [Speech to the UN General Assembly, September 23, 2011, submitting his bid for UN recognition of a Palestinian state - via WAFA News Agency, the official mouthpiece of the Palestinian Authority]
Leaves no doubt about his complete, total, wall-to-wall opposition to terror in all its forms, everywhere and forever.

Two weeks ago, speaking on official PA television, he said almost, more or less, practically the same thing. Except upside down. In PMW's words and Abbas':
  • Referring to the current Palestinian terror uprising, which at the time of Abbas’ statement had already murdered 14 Israelis [more since then, tragically] Abbas announced on PA TV that it is a “peaceful uprising.”
  • Abbas: “No one called for this uprising and no one asked for it. It stemmed from the hearts of the young... We said to everyone that we want peaceful popular uprising, and that’s what this is. That’s what this is. However, the aggression of firing bullets has come from the Israelis.” [Official PA TV, Nov. 16, 2015]
  • PMW: According to Abbas, when Palestinians kill young Israeli parents in front of their children, kill Israeli teens, or kill Israeli fathers with their sons, it is not to be condemned as terror because it is an expression of “peace.” And therefore, when Israelis kill the stabbers and shooters who are trying to peacefully kill Israelis - it is the Israelis who are the “aggressors.”
  • PMW: Significantly, Abbas openly admitted that he called “to everyone” for this violence: “We said to everyone that we want peaceful popular uprising, and that’s what this is. That’s what this is.”

  • PMW continues: One of the many PA calls to Palestinians to participate in this so-called “peaceful uprising” that Abbas might have been referring to was his Sept. 16, 2015 speech “blessing the blood” spilled fighting to prevent Jews from “defiling” the Al-Aqsa Mosque with “their filthy feet” when going to the Temple Mount. This “defiling of an Islamic holy site” was the excuse used by the PA as trigger for this current terror campaign. Excerpt follows -
  • "We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every Martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah... The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours and they have no right to defile it with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem." [Official PA TV, Sept. 16, 2015
  • Neither one to shy away from public demonstrations of rank hypocrisy, Abbas has taken several opportunities during these past two months of blood-letting attacks by his people - many of them children and women - to express solidarity and support for the victims of terror... in other places: France, Russia, Lebanon and Jordan. 
  • From another source - the Iranian mouthpiece with the strange name, PressTV - there's this gem of selective jihad-friendly outrage: "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned “the horrific events” in Paris and expressed sympathy and solidarity with the French people and government. “We condemn it in the strongest terms and we hope that this region can get rid of terror and the terrorists,” said Abbas, calling on all nations to “collaborate in the fight against terror... Terror has no religion nor a nation or a loyalty to one, whatever this terror maybe it is condemned by us and we stand against it all the way.”
  • From the same source: ""Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat also denounced the assaults as “criminal and murderous,” adding that these acts have nothing to do with Islam."
  • PMW [here] reminds us that throughout these two months, "Abbas has not condemned even one attack" by Palestinian Arabs against Israelis. 
Where, in any mainstream news reporting or analysis, have we seen these points made?

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