Hamas, Fatah officials celebrate unity (archive)
Hamas, Fatah officials celebrate unity (archive)Reuters

The Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership has taken steps to "punish" Israel for the results of the 20th Knesset elections, releasing a document condemning the results in general and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in particular. 

On Thursday, the Palestine Liberation Organization (the terror group behind the PA; headed by Mahmoud Abbas - ed.) met in Ramallah and made the following decisions:

  • To condemn Netanyahu as "racist", particularly after controversial remarks he made on the day of elections last week whereby he called on Israelis to vote to counteract a large voter turnout from the Israeli Arab population and after he briefly claimed that he would not continue to pursue the establishment of a Palestinian state;
  • To continue to deepen Israel's political and economic isolation, to expand the recognition of "the State of Palestine" and to gain support in the United Nations (UN) Security Council and other international institutions on the basis of 1949 Armistice lines with Jerusalem as its capital;
  •  To call upon the Palestinian people to keep to the "Palestinian National Plan" and cling to their land;
  • To complete the certification process for the PLO and the heads of various security agencies to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) and then to file "war crimes" complaints against Israel for building in Jewish-owned areas of Judea and Samaria (i.e. Area C) and to for retaliating to Hamas rocket fire in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge;
  • To launch talks in Gaza with Hamas and Islamic Jihad to implement the existing agreements regarding national reconciliation and preparing presidential and parliamentary elections for the "unity government." Hamas responded to the elections last week by pledging to recommit to reconciliation with Fatah, in order to better secure "Palestinian rights." 

Earlier Thursday, the PLO also declared an economic war on Israel, by announcing plans to end all economic cooperation with the Jewish state and increasing a boycott on Israeli products. 

The move comes after Israel froze the transfer of $127 million in taxes on imported goods collected monthly for the PA in January, as a penalty for the PA applying to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to sue Israel for "war crimes" in a unilateral move breaching the 1993 Oslo Accords.