Less than two months ago Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he would not grant any concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA) concerning security in Gaza unless there was an immediate cessation to hateful anti-Semitism in the Arab media that encouraged violence against Israelis.
Incitement continued in a a milder tone as Arabs shied away from calls for suicide bombings and concentrated on the demand for the immigration of more than three million Arabs living elsewhere while repeating the theme that all of Israel is Palestine. Prime Minister Sharon announced Israel would give the PA more authority on security following the reduction of anti-Israel rhetoric. Since then, "hate Israel" speeches have returned to the PA airwaves and in the streets.
Several days before Sunday's elections in which Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was elected as successor to Yasser Arafat, Arabs heard him call Israel "the Zionist enemy." A Moslem cleric last Friday preached about the Arabs' "longing for the destruction of Israel and America," according to Itamar Marcus' Palestinian Media Watch. The cleric also blamed American and Israel for the Southeast Asia disaster which killed more than 150,000 people.
Another cleric told listeners that "Jews are a cancer that spreads inside the body of the Islamic and Arab nation. The same cleric said a week beforehand, "'No' to the return to the 1967 borders. We are interested in returning to our genuine borders. We want to return to the 1948 [pre-Israel] borders and we are interested in returning to 1929 borders [when] a group of our grandfathers and fathers became martyrs for Allah."
He then denounced Britain for helping with the establishment of the State of Israel, "which is a false state on a true land." Arabs heard on PA television, "America will be buried the day the American embassy will be moved to Jerusalem and it will be the last nail in her coffin."
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reports that inflammatory sermons remain popular in mosques on the Temple Mount. The PA pays salaries to clerics administering the Temple Mount mosques from where many sermons are broadcast on PA radio.
In one sermon last month from a Temple Mount mosque before 30,000 Moslems, a sheikh read a well-known verse from the Koran which is featured on many posters and death notices and speaks of martyrs who "found their death [in battle] and some still await [their turn]." Suicide bombers often have been encouraged by this slogan.
The same sheikh also preached that "the U.S. is going to try to weaken the Middle East…by reinforcing Israel's military and economy" and weakening Arab states.
Incitement continued in a a milder tone as Arabs shied away from calls for suicide bombings and concentrated on the demand for the immigration of more than three million Arabs living elsewhere while repeating the theme that all of Israel is Palestine. Prime Minister Sharon announced Israel would give the PA more authority on security following the reduction of anti-Israel rhetoric. Since then, "hate Israel" speeches have returned to the PA airwaves and in the streets.
Several days before Sunday's elections in which Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was elected as successor to Yasser Arafat, Arabs heard him call Israel "the Zionist enemy." A Moslem cleric last Friday preached about the Arabs' "longing for the destruction of Israel and America," according to Itamar Marcus' Palestinian Media Watch. The cleric also blamed American and Israel for the Southeast Asia disaster which killed more than 150,000 people.
Another cleric told listeners that "Jews are a cancer that spreads inside the body of the Islamic and Arab nation. The same cleric said a week beforehand, "'No' to the return to the 1967 borders. We are interested in returning to our genuine borders. We want to return to the 1948 [pre-Israel] borders and we are interested in returning to 1929 borders [when] a group of our grandfathers and fathers became martyrs for Allah."
He then denounced Britain for helping with the establishment of the State of Israel, "which is a false state on a true land." Arabs heard on PA television, "America will be buried the day the American embassy will be moved to Jerusalem and it will be the last nail in her coffin."
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reports that inflammatory sermons remain popular in mosques on the Temple Mount. The PA pays salaries to clerics administering the Temple Mount mosques from where many sermons are broadcast on PA radio.
In one sermon last month from a Temple Mount mosque before 30,000 Moslems, a sheikh read a well-known verse from the Koran which is featured on many posters and death notices and speaks of martyrs who "found their death [in battle] and some still await [their turn]." Suicide bombers often have been encouraged by this slogan.
The same sheikh also preached that "the U.S. is going to try to weaken the Middle East…by reinforcing Israel's military and economy" and weakening Arab states.