PMW special report on Operation Pillar of Defense #8
Palestinian Authority responses
to Pillar of Defense
Columnists in PA daily:
"Like hidden snakes whose fangs
bite in the darkness, the oppressing invaders
(i.e., Israel) chase after our children"
"Childhood in Palestine [is] subject to killing,
torture and fear of the executioner"
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense
is being condemned by Palestinian Authority leaders and the official
media for a variety of reasons. Some have chosen to demonize Israel as a
blood-thirsty state that intentionally targets children. Others have
accused Israel of initiating the war for political purposes, either to
gain an advantage before Israel's upcoming elections or to prevent the
Palestinian UN statehood bid.
A regular columnist in the official PA daily wrote:
"Like hidden snakes whose fangs bite in
the darkness, the oppressing invaders (i.e., Israel) chase after our
children... They have no shame. They are very happy to be snakes that
stick out their tongues and slither with malice, and then attack,
thirsty and hungry for human blood and liver."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 19, 2012]
A reporter on PA TV News repeated the allegation that Israel intentionally targets children:
"It seems that targeting children is the
identifying mark of [Israel's] repeated air strikes and the continuing
Israeli bombings of the Gaza Strip."
[PA TV (Fatah), Nov. 16, 2012]
In the sports pages of the official PA daily, a regular columnist voiced
the same opinion, viewing Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense as just
another example of everyday life in "Palestine":
"This is what childhood is like in Palestine: it is subject to killing, torture and fear of the executioner."
Addressing the head of the Union of European Football Associations Michel Platini in an open letter, he asked:
"Isn't it a disgrace that this entity
(i.e., Israel) commits acts like this, while you encourage fair play and
honest competition? This is part of the entity's fair play against our
children. Isn't it a disgrace that this entity remains a member of UEFA,
[the organization] that you preside?"
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 19, 2012]
Referring to Israel's "state terror against the Palestinian people" in
letters to UN officials, the Palestinian Permanent Observer to the UN,
Riyad Mansour stated:
"Israel - the occupying authority - continues to carry out bombings from the air and fire missiles that intentionally target residential houses and the populated areas all over the Gaza Strip." (emphasis added)
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 19, 2012]
PA Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki stated:
"Israel... deems Palestinian blood permissible
and destroys what it pleases in the [Gaza] Strip, just as it kills,
destroys, confiscates [land], arrests [Palestinians] and builds
settlements every day in the West Bank, and in occupied Jerusalem."
(emphasis added)
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 17, 2012]
In the name of the Palestinian leadership, the Foreign Minister placed
"full responsibility on Israel for the consequences of this "assault"
and "responsibility on the international community for the continuation
and recurrence of these attacks against our beloved [Gaza] Strip. It is
the silence of the international community that has encouraged the
Israeli occupation to continue these aggressions."
His ministry "demanded of the international community, and particularly
the International Quartet, to act immediately to end the aggression
against Gaza, place full responsibility on the Israeli government for
these crimes and their repercussions on the region and the world, and
bring the criminals and murderers to justice in the relevant
international courts."
At the same time, the PLO Executive Committee "called for sister Arab states to take whatever measures necessary
to end and deter Israeli aggression in Gaza, including a reevaluation
of relations with the occupation state, 'because this Israeli government
strives to continue this war, to bring about the most widespread
destruction in Palestinian territories, and present the world with a new
fait accompli.'" (emphasis added)
From the beginning of Israel's air strikes, targeting the terror
infrastructure in Gaza, PA Chairman Abbas accused Israel of attempting
to derail the PA's diplomatic efforts to become accepted as a non-member
at the UN:
"The President [said]: 'Everything Israel is doing is meant to undermine our efforts to go to the UN.'"
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 17, 2012]
Meeting with other Arab leaders, Abbas said that the PA "warned that Israel intends to massacre our people." Abbas also warned the PA leadership that any Israeli escalation "will cause more destruction and bloodshed, and will increase the threat against the security and stability of the whole region."
He interpreted Israel's "aggressive and unfair war against our people
in [the] Gaza [Strip]," as an attempt to "strengthen the rift [between
Fatah and Hamas] and deepen the separation between the two parts of the
Palestinian homeland and soil," and encouraged "national unity."
(emphasis added)
The former head of Hamas' military wing Al-Ja'abari, who was responsible
for numerous terror attacks against Israel and who was killed by Israel
at the beginning of the operation, was praised by the official PA daily
columnist Yahya Rabah as a "great Jihad fighter" and "heroic":
"Israel is trying yet again to upset the cart with a new bloody round of
violence begun with the assassination of [Hamas'] Izz A-Din Al-Qassam
Brigades commander, our brother, the great Jihad fighter Ahmed
Al-Ja'abari... the heroic Martyr (Shahid) Ahmed Al-Ja'abari, may
Allah have mercy on him... We pray that he will be granted mercy and
pardon, and that Allah will bring him to His most capacious garden, and
that his family be accorded patience and comfort."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 16, 2012]
Fatah’s Revolutionary Council expressed its solidarity and support for
the Palestinians in Gaza and “salute[d] ‘the brave resistance of all the
factions in the Gaza Strip’”:
“Fatah’s Revolutionary Council said that
our [Palestinian] people is united in all its national battles against
the occupation… The Council said… that the war against the Gaza Strip is
a war against our whole people and its national existence. It [the
Council] salutes ‘the brave resistance of all the factions in the Gaza
Strip.’”
Others have said that Israel's "aggression against Gaza" is only for
Israeli election purposes. In a press release, the PLO Executive
Committee "stressed that the occupation state's barbaric and bloody
aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza... is meant to drag the region into a bloody conflict, to re-shuffle the [political] deck... and take advantage of Palestinian blood in the [upcoming] Israeli elections market." (emphasis added)
Similarly, PLO's Ambassador to Moscow Faed Mustafa stated that
"[Israeli] aircraft are attacking our people: our children, our women,
and our old people. They are smashing their beds in the Gaza strip," the
official PA daily reported. The article continued to describe how the
ambassador "also pointed out that this bloody scene repeats itself every
time elections are called in Israel."
Along the same lines, PA Minister of Religious Affairs Al-Habbash said:
"One of Israel's goals with the operation
is to "to use the Palestinian blood spilled in the streets of Gaza in
the Israeli election game."
[PA TV (Fatah), Nov. 16, 2012]
See Palestinian Media Watch's earlier reports on Operation Pillar of Defense:
The following are longer excerpts of the articles cited above:
Op-ed by regular columnist Adli Sadeq
Headline: "The oppressors kill the nightingales"
"Like hidden snakes whose fangs bite in the darkness, the oppressing
invaders (i.e., Israel) chase after our children. They throw fire at
their tender bodies, while the little ones' hearts full of love pour
forth like rivers and see hope through the holes made in the walls by
the raids! They have no shame. They are very happy to be snakes that
stick out their tongues and slither with malice, and then attack,
thirsty and hungry for human blood and liver... The oppressors who kill
the nightingales lay the foundations for a war that will last one or two
hundred years, while thinking that they are achieving security for
themselves. The walls of disgrace and wretchedness in our [Arab] nation
are collapsing... we will not remain for long in the cage under siege.
Dams, walls, [political] calculations and policies separate us from the
flow of a great nation whose rulers - with scarves that became worn from
waving the flag of "peace" too much - caused it [the nation] pain and
filled it with a sense of wretchedness! ... Salvation will only come
when the walls collapse, so that we will stay far away from their
alleged "peace." Then the cloud will dissipate along with the smog in
it..."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 19, 2012]
PA TV News reporter: "It seems that targeting children is the
identifying mark of [Israel's] repeated air strikes and the continuing
Israeli bombings of the Gaza Strip."
[PA TV (Fatah), Nov. 16, 2012]
By sports columnist Bader Maki (open letter to the president of UEFA, Michel Platini)
Headline: "To Michel Platini, greetings from Palestine"
"My dear general [Michel Platini], you are currently the president of
the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), and the Hebrew
entity [Israel] is part of this union. Are you satisfied, my brother
Michel, that this entity kills our children in Gaza? ... This is what
childhood is like in Palestine: it is subject to killing, torture and
fear of the executioner. Isn't it a disgrace that this entity commits
acts like this, while you encourage fair play and honest competition?
This is part of the entity's fair play against our children. Isn't it a
disgrace that this entity remains a member of UEFA, [the organization]
that you preside? How can you agree [to the fact] that this entity is
above the law? You sow the love of the game and its moral values, and
they kill us in the cradle. Michel, you must act so that this entity
will not remain in your midst. It is time for this entity to leave
[UEFA]... If you follow our news from Gaza, [you can see that] they
bombard our infrastructure, our stadiums and our [sports] clubs. They
want to eliminate our history, our present and the future of our
children... This cursed entity must be kicked out of this sports union
that believes in justice and fair play. The blood of [the children]
Ahmed Abu Daqqa and his friends will not have been spilled in vain only
if national unity is achieved. We must achieve it to honor the souls of
our Martyrs (Shahids), especially those of our children who dazzled the
world with only stones and RPGs in their hands. The occupier knows them
well from the Intifada and Beirut."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 19, 2012]
"The [Palestinian] Ambassador [to the UN,] Riyad Mansour (i.e., the
Palestinian Permanent Observer to the UN) sent... letters to the
president of the [UN] Security Council, the president of the [UN]
General Assembly and the Secretary General of the UN, in which he
informed them that Israel - the occupying authority - continues to carry
out bombings from the air and fire missiles that intentionally target
residential houses and the populated areas all over the Gaza Strip...
Ambassador Mansour condemned in the harshest terms the Israeli military
attacks and the continuation of the state terror against the Palestinian
people. He stressed that many of the victims of this [Israeli]
aggression are children, women and elderly Palestinians."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 19, 2012]
"Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki called to convene an emergency Arab
Summit as soon as possible in order to take a responsible stand
regarding the tragic situation that is recurring in Gaza and that
continues in the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories. During
his speech at the emergency meeting of the Arab foreign ministers this
evening [Nov. 17, 2012] in Cairo... he said: 'The new challenge that we
are now facing... is that Israel challenges all of us. It has again
challenged all of the Arabs without considering their reactions or even
[the reactions] of the entire world. It deems Palestinian blood
permissible and destroys what it pleases in the [Gaza] Strip, just as it
kills, destroys, confiscates [land], arrests [Palestinians] and builds
settlements every day in the West Bank, and in occupied Jerusalem. We
must show it [Israel] today that we have changed, and that the Arabs do
not allow the continuation of this aggression and this occupation... The
Palestinian leadership stands with our resolute people in the Gaza
Strip. It supports them to the best of its ability, even though these
abilities are limited. While it condemns the recent continuing Israeli
assault against the Palestinian, his home, his infrastructure, his daily
life, his safety and security, it also places full responsibility on
Israel for the consequences of this assault. In addition, it places
responsibility on the international community for the continuation and
recurrence of these attacks against our beloved [Gaza] Strip. It is the
silence of the international community that has encouraged the Israeli
occupation to continue these aggressions."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 17, 2012]
"The Foreign Ministry demanded of the international community, and
particularly the International Quartet, to act immediately to end the
aggression against Gaza, place full responsibility on the Israeli
government for these crimes and their repercussions on the region and
the world, and bring the criminals and murderers to justice in the
relevant international courts."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 17, 2012]
Headline: "They must reevaluate relations with Israel. PLO demands that Arabs call the Security Council to stop the aggression"
"The PLO Executive Committee called for sister Arab states to take
whatever measures necessary to end and deter Israeli aggression in Gaza,
including a reevaluation of relations with the occupation state,
'because this Israeli government strives to continue this war, to bring
about the most widespread destruction in Palestinian territories, and
present the world with a new fait accompli.' In a press release
yesterday evening (Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012), the Committee stressed
that the occupation state's barbaric and bloody aggression against the
Palestinian people in Gaza - that has resulted in many Martyrs (Shahids)
and wounded, first and foremost senior Hamas official Ahmad Ja'abari -
is meant to drag the region into a bloody conflict, to re-shuffle the
[political] deck, to avert attention from its daily aggressive actions
against the Palestinian people, and to intensify [Israeli] settlement
activity on the independent Palestinian state's land, and take advantage
of Palestinian blood in the [upcoming] Israeli elections market."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 15, 2012]
"The President [Abbas] went on to say: 'Everything Israel is doing is
meant to undermine our efforts to go to the UN, and he said: "We are
going to the UN on the 29th of this month [November 2012] with the aim
of having a vote (Ed: to upgrade Palestinian status to that of a
non-member state) - not to submit an application, and nothing will
prevent us from doing so.' ... The President noted that he has held
discussions with all regional and international Arab bodies, and (he
said): 'We warned that Israel intends to massacre our people.'"
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 17, 2012]
Excerpt from Abbas' speech at the PA leadership's meeting on Nov. 18, 2012:
"Israel continues its aggression for the
fifth day in a row and threatens [to enter] a new phase of escalation of
its military operation, something that will cause more destruction and
bloodshed, and will increase the threat against the security and
stability of the whole region... Through its aggressive and unfair war
against our people in [the] Gaza [Strip], Israel is trying to strengthen
the rift [between Fatah and Hamas] and deepen the separation between
the two parts of the Palestinian homeland and soil. The Palestinian
response to this aggression [should] first and foremost [be] to hurry
and leave behind [us] the dark rift and restore the national unity...
Besides the challenge of the aggression against Gaza, today the
Palestinian people is facing additional challenges that are no less
dangerous: the Judaization of Jerusalem, the expansion of the
settlements and the continuous Israeli threats against the PLO in
response to our UN petition [for non-member status]. Today we are all
the more in need of Palestinian unity to face these challenges.
Therefore today I call to convene an urgent meeting of leaders that will
include the brothers, the members of the Executive Committee, the
chairman of the National Council, the general secretaries of all the
Palestinian factions as well as national Palestinian personalities
agreed upon [by all parties] The aim is to discuss ways to face these
challenges unified as one within the framework of the PLO the sole and
legitimate representative of our people... I bless the multitudes of our
people who started to [demonstrate] in the squares here in Jerusalem
and in Ramallah, in other parts of the homeland and in the diaspora to
show their support for our resolute people in Gaza. I encourage you to
continue this blessed peaceful activity and to intensify it to convey to
the world a united Palestinian voice calling it [the world] to become
involved in order to stop this aggression."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 19, 2012]
Regular columnist Yahya Rabah of official PA daily:
Headline: "Israeli aggression and formulating a new Palestinian position!"
"And so, Israel is trying yet again to upset the cart with a new bloody
round of violence begun with the assassination of Izz A-Din Al-Qassam
Brigades commander, our brother, the great Jihad fighter Ahmed
Al-Ja'abari who in recent years assumed a greater public political role
as well -- as became clearly apparent at the Cairo talks among
Palestinian factions. The fact that Israel's assassinating him was the
first step in this bloody assault is significant in many ways regarding
relations within Hamas and regarding the Palestinian state of affairs in
general. This is so because the heroic Martyr (Shahid) Ahmed
Al-Ja'abari, may Allah have mercy on him, was a levelheaded leader whose
strong presence was always welcome throughout the Palestinian arena and
in the Gaza Strip, where in particular he had an undisputedly important
role in preventing the security forces from bullying, while maintaining
good, balanced contacts with them all. We pray that he will be granted
mercy and pardon, and that Allah will bring him to His most capacious
garden, and that his family be accorded patience and comfort."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 16, 2012]
“Fatah’s Revolutionary Council said that our [Palestinian] people is
united in all its national battles against the occupation… The Council
said… that the war against the Gaza Strip is a war against our whole
people and its national existence. It [the Council] salutes ‘the brave
resistance of all the factions in the Gaza Strip.’”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 21, 2012]
"[The Palestinian Student Union] ceremony included a number of speeches,
first of which was by the Palestinian Ambassador to Moscow, Faed
Mustafa, who noted that the meeting was taking place with the roar of
[Israeli] aircraft in the background, aircraft that are attacking our
people: Our children, our women, and our old people. They are smashing
their beds in the Gaza strip. He also pointed out that this bloody scene
repeats itself every time elections are called in Israel."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 17, 2012]
PA Minister of Religious Affairs Al-Habbash:
"One of Israel's goals
with the operation is to "to use the Palestinian blood spilled in the
streets of Gaza in the Israeli election game."
[PA TV (Fatah), Nov. 16, 201
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