Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was filmed this week at a PLO Central Committee meeting with an emblem that negates the existence of Israel as a backdrop. The PLO emblem includes the PA flag above a map which depcits Palestine replacing the entirety of the State of Israel.
Palestinian Media Watch Directors Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook explained the emblem: "This symbolizes that all of Israel is, or will someday be, 'Palestine.'"
The video from the PLO meeting, which took place in Ramallah, was broadcast on PA television on Sunday, January 13. The event took place just days after Abbas met with US President George W. Bush and reiterated his commitment to peaceful negotiations with Israel.
The PA's Fatah terrorist faction, under the direct command of Abbas, also continues to promote the elimination of Israel through its maps and symbols. A map on a poster printed in December in honor of the group's 43rd anniversary shows all of Israel as "Palestine" draped in a colorful keffiyeh scarf. A rifle is pictured alongside the map.
Fatah is generally treated by Western leaders as more moderate than rival terrorist groups, as it currently professes to support an Arab Muslim state in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Jerusalem, but not within Israel’s 1948-1967 borders. However, throughout decades of negotiations, the group never changed its maps or military symbols, and Fatah leaders refuse to recognize Israel as Jewish within any borders. In a 2001 press release in honor of the 37th anniversary of Fatah's first terrorist attack, the organization declared that "a legitimate Palestinian entity forms the most important weapon that Arabs have against Israel...."
On November 28, the day after the Annapolis Conference, official PA television broadcast a map of the region obliterating Israel completely and replacing it with a Palestinian flag.