Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein
Knesset Speaker Yuli EdelsteinFlash 90

Knesset Speaker MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) said on Tuesday that Israel had no partner for peace in the Palestinian Authority (PA), because it continues to incite against Israel.

Edelstein released a letter of support for a planned march by nationalist activists at the E1 area, which connects between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim.

Activists who are planning the march, set for Thursday, are hoping that 60 MKs - half of Israel’s parliament - will take part.

In his letter of support, MK Edelstein wrote that the march is needed and justified because the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria is facing a complex challenge that threatens its legitimacy “and its right to exist.”

"Boycotts, product labeling, threatening a boycott of academic institutions in Judea and Samaria and staining the entire settlement enterprise because of the actions of a few extremists come together to form a course of action which is accompanied by political pressure,” he warned.

"It is not the communities in Judea and Samaria that are the main obstacle to peace, but rather the Palestinian Authority that is not a partner for peace,” continued Edelstein.

“Today we are witnessing the continuation of the wild incitement, including the use of Nazi and anti-Semitic symbols, while encouraging the younger generation in schools and kindergartens to take part in it. This is in addition to the incitement that occurs in the city squares, the media and universities,” he wrote.

“We must not remain silent in the face of such incitement,” declared the Knesset Speaker. “We cannot bury our heads in the sand or ignore the challenges facing us. I believe in our spiritual strength and in our ability to convince others of the justness of our cause and the justness of the settlement enterprise, and I hope that many will join the march and declare, with their hearts and their feet, their allegiance to Israel.”

Peace talks between Israel and the PA resumed last summer, but that has not stopped the PA from inciting against Israel in its media and in public speeches given by its officials. 

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 incidents of incitement include the glorification of the murderer of 61 Israeli civilians on the official Facebook page of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party.

Intelligence and International Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz recently refused an American offer to convene a joint Israel-U.S.-PA committee to discuss the PA’s ongoing incitement against Israel, explaining that “there is no point in convening a committee that will be a cover-up for continued incitement by the Palestinian Authority.”