PA Calls Israel and ISIS ‘Twins,’ Claims Slain ISIS leader an ‘American Pawn’

“The US created an organization-state of barbarity, terror, and racism, for which they chose the name the Islamic State,” claimed the Palestinian Authority’s official daily newspaper.

By Maurice Hirsch, Adv., Palestinian Media Watch

While most of Western society saw the death of ISIS leader and arch-terrorist Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi as a positive development in the war on terrorism, the Palestinian Authority (PA) chose to outrageously claim that Al-Baghdadi was a US “pawn” and ISIS a US creation – a terror organization only paralleled by Israel, according to the PA.

Muwaffaq Matar, a Fatah Revolutionary Council member and regular columnist for the official PA daily, presented a venomous PA manifest against the US: “They [the US] killed their pawn, who they planted in the open borderless territories of Iraq and Syria after they created an organization-state of barbarity, terror, and racism, for which they chose the name ‘the Islamic State,'” reported the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida.

But dealing with ISIS is not enough as it only amounts to “cutting off the tail of the monster,” Matar stated, arguing that the monster’s head – Israel – is yet to be fought: “[The elimination of Al-Baghdadi] was tantamount to a strong blow that has cut off the tail of the monster of terror. However, this monster has a head, and in it is a brain that is capable of growing a different tail and wings. … The occupation, settlement, terror, racism, crimes against humanity, and rebellion against UN laws and conventions have a state. They named it ‘Israel’ and established it on the land of Palestine, which is the Palestinian people’s historical and natural right.”

Comparing Israel to ISIS, Matar stated that in practice ISIS and Israel are identical: “This [ISIS] is an organization that, in regard to its crimes, there is nothing similar to it in the modern history of the region except for a defective, colonialist, settling, occupying, and racist state for which they chose the name ‘the State of Israel.’

“The heads of large states in the world have said that the elimination of Al-Baghdadi is not the end of ISIS’ terror – and this is correct! But not one of them referred to their responsibility and their state’s responsibility to drain the greatest, deepest, and most dangerous swamp of terror for the region and the world: the defective and racist State of Israel. We know… that the Muslim Brotherhood organization… is essentially a twin of the Zionist movement.”

When in Doubt, Blame Israel

Echoing the repeated PA claim that Israel is responsible for the Muslim in-fighting and that the Muslim Brotherhood has distracted the Arabs and gotten them into internal religious conflicts, Matar expanded his comparison of ISIS and Israel: “This made it easier for their Zionist twin to encourage the Jewish immigration to Palestine and to establish the foundations of a ‘state,’ which they wrapped in a cloak of democracy – but really it is not significantly different from the state of ISIS. The racism, crimes, bloodshed to terrorize people, emptying the land of its original owners, horrifying massacres, and subjugating the residents of the land to laws that are inappropriate [even] for the world of wild animals – all of these are characteristics common to the two states.”

Lamenting Israel’s continued existence, and advocating it be “put to an end,” Matar added: “The world will continue to display helplessness as long as it does not put an end to the terror and crimes of the older of the two twins… Al-Baghdadi’s ISIS state did not receive any popular support… but the racist state of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu enjoys the support of large states. It receives official protection, not [only] from the strongest state in the world, but [also] from colonialist states that created its first bricks and foundations, and from states that see in it a solution for leaving the Jewish problem far away from them.”

This is far from the first time the PA has compared Israel to ISIS. Palestinian Media Watch has exposed cartoons showing the purported similarities and the alleged cooperation between Israel and the Islamic terror organization.

‘US-Israeli Conspiracy’

Matar further insinuated that the medical support Israel offered to Syrians fleeing the civil war was merely part of the US-Israeli conspiracy: “Al-Baghdadi did not attack his twin Netanyahu even once, but in many instances Netanyahu opened his state’s borders with southern Syria to the entry of Al-Baghdadi’s soldiers for the sake of maneuvering, rescuing, or [medical] treatment.”

Reflecting the claim of Matar that Al-Baghdadi was a US/Israeli pawn who had served his purpose, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ former advisor and the PA’s Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash wondered out loud on Facebook, “Has Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi’s mission ended, and therefore America announced that it killed him?”

It should be noted that op-eds published in the official PA daily cannot be seen as not reflecting the opinion of the paper in the same manner as op-eds published in the western press are viewed. The official PA daily is completely controlled by the PA, including receiving direct financing from the PA. PA officials have even admitted that the official PA media is not neutral, but rather media “with a national cause,” Noting this level of control, it is clear that only op-eds that reflect the position of the PA are published.

While Abbas and other PA and PLO representatives assure the international audience that the Palestinians’ goal is the realization of a “two state solution” in which a Palestinian state lives side by side and in peace with Israel, it is obvious that claims such as those made by Matar in the official PA daily and by senior PA official Al-Habbash do nothing to forward this goal.

Finally, it should be noted, that the international coalition to combat ISIS started and was led by the administration of US President Barack Obama. Accordingly, when the PA claims that Al-Baghdadi – who was announced leader of ISIS in 2010 – was a “pawn” “planted” by the US, they are not criticizing current US President Trump, but rather pointing an accusing finger at President Obama. In contrast to the outrageous claims of the PA, Daniel Shapiro, President Obama’s US Ambassador to Israel, tweeted about the elimination of Al-Baghdadi saying: “The death of the cruel arch-terrorist al-Baghdadi is a win for humanity.”