Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud AbbasIsrael news photo: Flash 90

Israel filed a complaint with the United Nations on Wednesday, in the wake of a condolence letter sent by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to the family of a terrorist who was responsible for a 2012 Tel Aviv bus bombing attack.

The terrorist, Mohammed Assi, was eliminated by IDF soldiers last week after holing up in a cave near Dolev, in the western Binyamin region.

In a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, pointed out that while Israel makes “gestures” to the PA in the form of releasing terrorist murderers, the PA “returns the favor” by inciting against Israel and glorifying terrorists.

“Amazingly, astonishingly, and outrageously, Palestinian Authority President Abbas found it appropriate to write a condolence letter to a terrorist’s family last week,” wrote Prosor.

“Terrorism does not begin with an attack on a bus or a café. That is how terrorism ends. Terrorism begins when its perpetrators are indoctrinated with words and thoughts of hate,” he added.

“President Abbas’s letter is just the most recent example of the incitement poisoning the next generation. In classrooms, textbooks, and houses of worship, Palestinian children are being taught hate instead of peace; violence instead of tolerance; and martyrdom instead of mutual understanding,” wrote Prosor, who urged Ban and members of the Security Council to condemn the rise in incitement and to urge others in the international community to do the same.

Even as peace talks have resumed, there have been many incidents of incitement on PA TV, as reported by Arutz Sheva.

In one such incident, PA TV broadcast a crudely anti-Semitic program legitimizing violence against Jews in Judea and Samaria - who were stereotyped as violent thieves. The end of the program glorified the humiliation of a religious Jew by cutting off his peyote side-curls, in a scene chillingly reminiscent of Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda.

Other broadcasts included a re-run of a music video encouraging violence against Israelis, and the glorification of the murderer of 61 Israeli civilians on the official Facebook page of Abbas' Fatah party.