Thursday, December 09, 2004 17:13 IST
JNW HEADLINE NEWS‘Moderate’ PA still hostile to Jews, US
By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial StaffDecember 8th, 2004
JERUSALEM - The post-Arafat “Palestinian” leadership – largely hailed in the West for its supposed moderation – offered signs this week that it continues to hold veiled but violent anti-Israel and anti-US views.
On Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority came to the defense of Hizballah’s Al-Manar television station, after French authorities threatened to halt broadcasts over blatantly anti-Semitic material.
A day earlier, the new leader of the ruling Fatah faction urged Arab insurgents in Iraq to continue the fight until they had fully defeated the Americans. He said their victories over US forces in Iraq would also belong to the “Palestinians.”
Supporting anti-Semitism
In 2003, Al-Manar aired a mini-series based on the czarist-era Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic forgery that claims the Jews are involved in a conspiracy aimed at global dominance.
Following that, France insisted Hizballah sign an agreement promising to no longer broadcast hate material before a French satellite network would be permitted to carry Al-Manar.
The agreement was broken just days after it was signed, when Al-Manar reported that the “Zionists” had been “transmitting dangerous diseases such as AIDS through exports to Arab countries.”
Jew hatred has been a staple of Al-Manar ever since, culminating last week in intense French efforts to have the channel banned.
Tellingly, the PA’s official representative in Paris, Leila Shahid, said she “did not notice hatred” in the virulently anti-Jewish Al-Manar programs, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported Tuesday.
Defeat the US
In a revealing statement about “Palestinian” feelings towards the US, Fatah leader Farouq Kaddoumi Monday expressed utmost support for the insurgency forces currently attacking American troops stationed in Iraq.
“We support the Iraqi resistance, and its victories will be those of the Palestinian resistance,” Kaddoumi told reporters in Tunis.
Fatah – originally founded by Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas – is the leading faction in the PLO and holds a seemingly insurmountable majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council, giving it, and Kaddoumi, great influence over the PA.
Drop the PA
Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein called on the Bush administration to take the Al-Manar fiasco as evidence the PA remained a violently anti-Israel and anti-American entity, and that to award it a sovereign state would be a mistake.
“Once again, the post-Arafat Palestinian Authority sides with America's enemies. From Saddam Hussein to Hizballah, the PA consistently supports those who hate and murder Jews and Americans,” Klein stated.
Hizballah was behind the killing of 241 US Marines in the 1983 bombing of their Beirut bunkers. The terror group has since been actively involved in combating American forces stationed in Iraq.
“The time has come for the Bush administration to recognize that the PA is fundamentally an anti-American terrorist regime, and withdraw its support for the creation of a Palestinian Arab state,” Klein insisted.
“It is clear that such a state would be an anti-American terrorist dictatorship.”