According to a prominent watchdog group, France adopted the Palestinians’ s “terror-supporting political demands,” including a “call to free mass murderers.”
By Ezra Stone, United with Israel Staff
Who in their right mind would claim Israel should release Palestinian terrorists imprisoned for murder and other violent crimes against civilians and soldiers alike?
According to a recent expose by watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), quoting a report in the official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadid, French Consul-General René Troccaz recently called for the release of imprisoned terrorists, including mass murderers.
Troccaz made the comments during a recent meeting with PLO Executive Committee Secretary and Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat, acoording to Al-Hayat Al-Jadid, which claims “the French consul general emphasized his country’s absolute rejection” of Israeli sovereignty over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and “the realization of the independence of the State of Palestine whose capital is East Jerusalem within the 1967 borders.”
In reality, the phrase “1967 borders” is misleading at best because a “State of Palestine” never existed. Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria before 1967’s Six-Day War, and the Hasehmite kingdom lost the territory to Israel. Judea and Samaria were the Jewish people’s breadbasket during biblical times and there has been a Jewish presence in this area continuously since that time.
The Al-Hayat Al-Jadid report also claimed Troccaz called for the return of the so-called “Palestinian refugees,” another misleading phrase which is used to refer to all descendants of Arabs who left, either voluntarily or by force, the territory that later became the State of Israel.
The PA, bolstered by support from the United Nations, claims there are 5.5 million “Palestinian refugees,” regardless of whether they have citizenship in other countries or not. Flooding Israel with this population, of which only a tiny fraction actually left Israel during the War of Independence era, would demographically eliminate Israel’s character as a Jewish state.
According to the PMW report, France’s “release the prisoners” demand means Paris expects Israel to let out “mass murderers responsible for multiple terror attacks, such as Abdullah Barghouti, murderer of 67, Ibrahim Hamed, murderer of 54, and Hassan Salame, murderer of 44, and hundreds of other murderers.”
“It is unclear why France believes that the release of mass murderers is a prerequisite to Israeli-Palestinian peace,” commented PMW’s Maurice Hirsch, Adv. “These terrorists slaughtered hundreds of civilians, many of whom held foreign citizenship. Demanding the release of terrorist murderers is not only a call to undermine justice, but is a direct expression of support for terrorists.”
Hirsch added, “As part of its participation in the Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, France has simply adopted, hook, line and sinker, the entire PA narrative, and now conditions achieving peace on Israel committing national suicide.”
“Noting the glaring similarities between the position of France as expressed by the French Consul and the PA talking points, Palestinian Media Watch sent a request to the French Consulate General asking to confirm that the quote in the official PA daily did indeed reflect Troccaz’s statements in the meeting with Erekat,” Hirsch continued. “At the time of writing the French Consulate General has not yet responded. Assuming they would want to comment were the statement attributed to the consul incorrect, it stands to reason that the quote was accurate.”