Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon says that international donor funds provided to the Palestinian Authority are being directly used for incitement and hate education. If the PA wants a state, he said, this had better stop.
In a press conference in Jerusalem on Monday, Ayalon took the opportunity to call on Fatah and the Palestinian Authority to stop what he called their "culture of hatred." A spokesman for the London-based TaxPayers' Alliance added that British and European taxpayers should be concerned because their governments provide the Palestinian Authority with tens of millions of dollars each year.
A member of the Israel Our Home party and a former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Ayalon emphasized the fact that hate education and incitement is one of the Palestinian Authority's major problems. "Everyone talks about Hamas, which is obvious," he said, "but the PA, Fatah and [PA leader] Mahmoud Abbas also engage in incitement and have created a 'culture of hate.'"
"The recent Fatah Conference, which we helped facilitate, came out with very negative messages which emphasized education about the [importance of the] armed struggle [against Israel]," the diplomat continued.
"The Fatah Constitution still calls for the eradication of the State of Israel," Ayalon said, "and this was reaffirmed during the recent conference. This is a major problem. As long as Israel is not accepted as a legitimate and natural part of this region then we will not see a desire for peace. If they do not stop incitement, we can't move forward."
Palestinian State?
Ayalon stressed that stopping incitement was important for the political process to proceed: "If the Palestinians want to create a new state in the Middle East, then we cannot allow it to become another failed or terrorist state. Incitement should be stopped before a Palestinian state comes into existence - and not after."
Interestingly, the party platform of Israel Our Home does not favor the establishment of a Palestinian state as currently proposed. The party stands alone in demanding that if a Jew-free Arab state is to arise in parts of Judea and Samaria, it must also absorb areas currently under Israeli control that are populated exclusively by Arabs.
The platform states: "The currently-proposed arrangement includes a demand that Israel evacuate all of the Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria, as occurred in Gush Katif. This would mean the establishment of a homogeneous Palestinian state without one Jew - while Israel becomes a bi-national state with a minority [Arab - ed.] group of over 20% of its population. This model cannot be sustained."
Examples of Incitement
Matthew Sinclair, Research Director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, gave some examples at the press conference of incitement in the Palestinian Authority. He noted a PA Imam's sermon of last Friday in which he termed Jews "the enemy of humanity" and called on his listeners to fight against Jews and "kill them." The sermon was broadcast over the official Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation television station.
Click here for another recent example of official PA hatred and incitement against Israel.
Sinclair stated that PA incitement is an issue for British and European taxpayers because the British government and the European Union fund the Palestinian Authority to the tune of tens of millions every year. "This is an issue that starts from Western taxpayers interests," Sinclair said.