Itamar Marcus, the Director of Palestinian Media Watch, spoke with Rabbi Pesach Wolicki on the Arutz Sheva and Israel365 special coverage of the beginning of the second Trump Administration this week and on the reaction inside the Palestinian Authority (PA) to the return of President Donald Trump to the White House.
"We don't have to guess what they think about [Trump] because they've been saying it for years and they've been reiterating their attitude over the last few weeks," Marcus said. "I'll give you some of the things they've said about him. This is the official Palestinian Authority. They've said he's worse than Hitler. They've said his evil will exceed Hitler due to his belief in racial superiority - those were the exact words of the official Palestinian newspaper."
He noted that the PA has "called [Trump] racist a number of times. And then they said that he was very 'slick' in getting the Black and Latino Americans to vote for him despite his racism. They have been demonizing this person for the very longest time. To that they've added a very interesting component. They've said that Mahmoud Abbas, their leader, is so wise and so smart that he made a point of congratulating [Trump] after his election and he again today congratulated him, and he's doing this because he's smart enough to be able to manipulate him."
"They worded it this way: 'If we act wisely and cleverly according to the logic and mentality of Trump, it'll be possible to cause a positive change in direction,'" he said. "What are they saying here? They're saying exactly that. They don't use the word 'manipulate,' but that's what they're saying here. They're gonna pretend that they are somehow gonna ally with him."
Marcus described the PA's worldview, which is inherently anti-America. "Mahmoud Abbas' adviser, just a couple of months ago, on television, said that there has to be a new world order where there are three powers in the world: One is Russia, one is China, and one is the Islamic world. This has to rule the world and everyone else has to be secondary. Donald Trump wants to make America great again and believes that America can and should lead the world in so many different areas, and the Palestinian Authority is not in its camp."
"This is critical. The United States has been funding the PA for years and all they get is hate and disdain from the Palestinian Authority no matter who is the president. Whether it's a Republican, whether it's a Democrat, the Palestinian Authority sees itself in the same camp in the same camp, not just of Russia and China, they see [themselves] in the camp with North Korea, they see it in the camp, recently, with Venuezuala ... they are in the camp of all of America's enemies," he said.
"When the United States talks naively about creating a Palestinian state, why would you create a Palestinian state which is going to be a force for all the evil that the United States is trying to fight in the world represented by all these countries? That's what the Palestinian Authority is, that's who they say they are, and those are their allies," Marcus declared.
"We at Palestinian Media Watch are going to make sure that [Trump] gets all this information," he said. "Everything that I've told you right now, what's been said now and what was said over the years, is going to be put into a full report that through our contacts we will hopefully get onto the desk of Donald Trump."
Marcus added that the PA views Trump as a fool. "They laugh at him, they mock him, but they want to manipulate him. I think this is a message that has to get to Trump, because if he's going to build an effective and a positive role in dealing with the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian Authority has to first completely change all of its stripes and its essence and come into something that the United States would want to deal with and want to promote."