PA TV incitement and Abbas
PA TV incitement and AbbasIsrael news photo: PMW screenshot and Israel

The Palestinian Authority government deliberately incited its population to terrorism long before the Sabbath slaughter of the Fogel family in the Samaria Jewish community of Itamar this past Friday night.

“Incitement against Israel, which frequently turns into genuine anti-Semitic incitement, is an inseparable part of the fabric of life in the Palestinian Authority, “ noted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in a statement issued  by his media adviser following the murder. “These anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic messages are regularly heard in both the private and official media and in mosque sermons, and are studied in school textbooks. Terrorists are given honored status and become models for emulation in Palestinian society, both in the media and via ceremonies held by institutions affiliated with the PA."

“Institutionalized and systematic incitement against Israel has never ceased in the PA, even during the height of the diplomatic process in the 1990s,” the PMO noted.

Recent Examples of PA Incitement
Praising numerous attacks by terrorists, the PA government has made special efforts to encourage the murder of Israelis – and has not shied away from praising those who kill children, despite protestations to the contrary.

On the day before the brutal slaying of the Fogel family, Sabri Saidam, adviser to Abbas and under-secretary of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, told PA Arabs in a speech that “the weapons must be turned towards the main enemy [Israel] and that internal differences of opinion must be set aside.” Saidam denounced the low monthly stipends to families of terrorists who murder Israelis. He also called for the naming of another public square in honor of Dalal Mughrabi, the bloodthirsty terrorist who led the 1978 Coastal Road massacre that left dozens of Israelis dead, including 13 children.

On March 6, the Al Hayat Al Jadida newspaper advertised the naming of a “youth” tournament for 19 year olds honoring the memory of "shahida" (Martyr) Wafa Idris – the first female PA Arab suicide bomber. As a Red Crescent ambulance volunteer, she was able to bypass Israeli security and enter Jerusalem, where she murdered one person and wounded more than 150 others in January 2002.

One week prior to the brutal attack on the Fogel family, the Fatah faction led by Abbas held a ceremony at the Deheisheh neighborhood of Bethlehem, honoring those of its homegrown terrorists who were killed during the PA's terrorist campaign against Israel in the years 2002-2005. Those “honored” included suicide bomber Muhammad Daraghmeh, who murdered nine Israelis in Jerusalem, as well as Saed Saud Abu Amar, Jad Mahmoud Atallah, Issa Zakri Faraj and Ayyat Al-Akhras – who at age 17 was the youngest female suicide bomber, having murdered two Israelis in her suicide bombing of March 2002.

On February 9, the official PA TV station broadcast a clip from a campaign entitled “Women as Role Models” during which Dalal Mughrabi was extolled as a prime example. Last summer several children's camps were named in her memory.

Two months prior to the Fogel murder, PA Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas awarded $2,000 to the family of a terrorist who attacked and attempted to murder IDF soldiers. Khaldoun Najib Samoudy raced towards IDF soldiers at the Hamra checkpoint in December 2010, carrying two pipe bombs and screaming “Allahu Akbar!” (G-d is Great). His act was lauded in the January 25 edition of the Fatah-backed PA newspaper, Al Hayat Al Jadida, which covered an award ceremony in which Abbas bestowed a “presidential grant” of $2,000 on the relatives of the “Shahid” (martyr) in the village of Al-Yamoun. The article, in Arabic, was translated by media watchdog the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).

On January 2, the Al Hayat Al Jadida newspaper reported a speech by Azzam Al-Ahmed, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, which expressed the PA government's support for terrorism as a means of “resistance." During a gathering on the 46th anniversary of the faction's founding, Al-Ahmed was quoted as saying, “We emphasize today the aims for which the Fatah movement was established,” adding Fatah is a mass movement which believes in popular revolution and has wrested its right to use all means of resistance in order to achieve its aim. 

On October 26, 2010, PA TV broadcast a documentary about the work of PA medical teams that included an entirely fictitious scene in which an Israeli soldier shoots a PA Arab in the head.

On June 21, 2010, a children's program was broadcast on the official PA TV channel which taught that “The Jews are our enemies,” and that “Israeli soldiers are wild animals.”

On December 27, 2009, official PA TV reported that Tayib Abd A-Rahim, a representative of Abbas, presented condolences on behalf of the PA chairman to the families of three terrorists killed by IDF soldiers after murdering Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai. A-Rahim said on Abbas's behalf, that “without doubt, the Occupation authorities perpetrated a wild and barbaric assassination, maliciously and in cold blood.”

In PA schools, the “History of the Arabs and the World in the 20th Century” is a 12th grade textbook used the Palestinian Authority to teach about World War II. The textbook includes material on Nazi ideology – but does not mention the Holocaust at all.