Palestinian Football Association President and prominent political figure Jibril Rajoub. (AP/Nasser Shiyoukhi)

Palestinian Authority officials and media are not only condoning, but also encouraging terrorism against Israelis. However, they recommend doing so at the right place and at the right time, in order not to be likened to the Islamic State (ISIS) by the international community.

Jibril Rajoub is an influential figure in the Palestinian Authority (PA). He is deputy-secretary of the Fatah (PA ruling party) Central Committee, head of the Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs, chairman of the Palestinian Football Association and chairman of the Olympic Committee. On October 17, 2015, as reported by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), he stated on official PA TV:

“The international community does not agree to a bus exploding in Tel Aviv. But the international community does not ask what happens to a settler or soldier in the occupied territories at the wrong time and in the wrong place. No one asks about him! Therefore, we want to fight in such a way that the world and the international community will remain by our side.“

In other words, according to Rajoub, carrying out a terror attack in Tel Aviv is unacceptable to the world community, and that is the only reason why it would be ill-conceived to blow up a bus in that city. On the other hand, an IDF soldier of a “settler” – meaning a resident of a Jewish community in Judea and Samaria, which he refers to as “occupied territories” – would be seen as fair game, and therefore, Palestinians would be well advised to continue murdering Jewish soldiers and civilians in that region.

“These are individual operations (terror attacks), however, they comprise bravery and composure… These are individual acts of bravery, and I am proud of them. I congratulate everyone who carried them out. I say to you, we are proud of you… The fighter, the prisoner, or the Martyr, they are assets to the entire Palestinian people,” Rajoub told his TV viewers, who include people of all ages. “I congratulate everyone who carried them out.”

World Community Shares Blame for Terror

PMW in facts holds the international community partly responsible for the ongoing terror in Judea and Samaria, explaining that “according to Rajoub, it is the international community’s message to the PA, possibly through its silence, that it accepts stabbing and shooting murders of Israeli soldiers and civilians in Jerusalem and the ‘West Bank’, which enables the PA leadership to continue promoting murder. Clearly, the international community shares in the moral responsibility for the current murder wave if this is how the PA leadership perceives their standpoint. According to Rajoub, if the international community were to send the explicit message to the PA that it does not agree to any PA terror anywhere, the PA would be forced to stop, so that ‘the international community will remain by our side.'”

A Palestinian terrorist. (AP/Mahmoud Illean)

While Rajoub focused on the “right place” to kill Israelis, Hafez Al-Barghouti, regular columnist and former editor of the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, stressed the timing. On November 24 – just two weeks ago – he wrote: “After the events of September [9, 2001] in New York, [then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon applied the term ‘terror’ used to refer to those attacks, to our national struggle. I warned about this at the time, and called to keep a low profile until the New York turmoil had passed… Now, after the Paris attacks (on November 13, which killed 130 people and wounded 352), we must keep a low profile so that we are not charged with the crimes of ISIS… We must learn our lessons and wait.”

According to Barghouti, “it is our duty to prevent our sons and daughters…from carrying out futile acts.”

Palestinian incitement to terror, which is rampant throughout the PA-administered territories, comes from the upper echelons of the PA administration, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Since the beginning of the current wave of Palestinian terror, since October 1, 21 Israeli civilians have been killed and more than 200 wounded – many of them seriously.

By: United with Israel Staff
(With files from Palestinian Media Watch)

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