Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud AbbasReuters

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who is often touted by the West as a “peace partner” for Israel, recently met with Palestinian Arabs who carried out terrorist attacks and with the family of a terrorist, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reveals.

On March 5, he received in his office in Ramallah the family of Muhammad Al-Jallad, who died of his wounds after being shot while attempting to carry out a stabbing attack at a checkpoint in November 2016.

Abbas also met with 14-year-old Osama Zaidat, who was shot while attempting to stab civilians in Kiryat Arba in September 2016 and who was recently released from detention, as well as with Imad Asaf, a terrorist from the Al-Aqsa Brigades, Fatah's “military wing”, who took part in the Second Intifada in 2000 and was recently released from prison.

MEMRI cited reports from the PA official news agency WAFA as well as from the Al-Ayyam newspaper.

It also showed a photo from Abbas’s Facebook page of his meeting with Zaidat.

In one of the meetings Abbas said, "The aggression of Israel's arrest and murder [of Palestinians] will not keep the Palestinian people from adhering to its well-deserved rights and from establishing an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital...The Palestinian leadership will make every effort to end the suffering of our heroic brothers and release them from the occupation's prisons so they can take part in building the homeland for which they sacrificed."

MEMRI further noted that Abbas often stresses the importance he ascribes to freeing the terrorist prisoners being held in Israel, and emphasizes that the PA leadership is making every effort to secure their release.

For example, at an August 8, 2016 reception in Ramallah for the released prisoner Shadi Al-Baba of the Al-Qassam Brigades, he said, "The issue of the prisoners will continue to be a top priority for the [Palestinian] leadership, [which will act] to free all the prisoners and detainees.

Abbas made similar remarks in a December 28, 2016 meeting with Muhammad and Mahmoud Balboul, who were released from administrative detention following a 28-day hunger strike.

At the Seventh Fatah Conference on December 1, 2016, he praised the prisoners, especially senior Fatah and Popular Front operatives who were behind terrorist attacks, including the assassination of Israeli minister Rehavam Zeevi, saying, "We remember the martyrs, the wounded and the prisoners and their record... We salute our brave prisoners and respect them. We will not forget our fighting comrades Marwan Al-Barghouti, Ahmad Sa'dat and Fouad Shubaki, or [our] glorious woman prisoners."

These are just a few examples of the incitement by Abbas and other PA officials, which is the cause of many of the attacks in the terror wave which began in later 2016.

While Abbas tells the West in English that he is against violence and terrorism, his television channels and social media pages belonging to Fatah openly call for terrorism against Israelis.

The PA pays salaries to terrorists imprisoned in Israel, despite having promised to stop doing so. Abbas let this fact slip in a meeting last year with Norway’s foreign minister.