|
|
|
|
Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
|
June 19, 2015
|
|
|
State
Department Report Minimizes Palestinian Incitement to Violence
by IPT News • Jun 19, 2015 at
1:48 pm
|
|
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the
first of your friends to like this.
The U.S. State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism 2014 issued Friday
minimizes official Palestinian incitement to violence against Israel and
completely overlooks Palestinian glorification of terrorists.
The annual report lists major terrorist incidents worldwide and outlines
each country's counterterrorism efforts and legislation. Terrorism attacks
and their resulting deaths spiked last year, the report found, an increase largely
driven by attacks by the Islamic State and Nigeria's Boko Haram terrorist
groups.
With respect to the Palestinian Authority (PA), the report praises the PA for taking "significant steps to
ensure that official institutions in the West Bank that fall under its
control do not create content that leads to incitement to violence."
The report acknowledges that "some instances of inciting taking place
via official media" still occur, listing only three examples. However,
the report diminishes the fact that incitement to violence is a systematic
and institutionalized PA phenomenon.
Click here for an Investigative Project on Terrorism
comprehensive outline of Palestinian violent incitement focused only on
incidents last fall.
The State Department assessment also ignores the direct participation of
senior PA officials in praising terrorists and inciting violence against
Israelis and Jews.
For example, the report does not mention PA President Mahmoud Abbas'
call last October for Palestinians to prevent Jews from going to the Temple
Mount compound "in any way." The video clip of Abbas' Oct. 17
speech was shown 19 on PA television times in three days, implicitly
calling for Palestinians to use violence against Israelis.
Instead, the report described PA efforts "to ensure" Friday
sermons in more than 1,800 mosques controlled by the PA "do not
endorse incitement to violence ... the guidance is that no sermon can
discuss political or lead to incitement to violence."
In February, however, the PA Minister of Religious Affairs and other
prominent religious officials resorted to an age-old blood libel accusing
Jews of attacking Muslims sites and that Israel is trying to destroy the
al-Aqsa Mosque, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reports. Such accusations are baseless and encourage
Palestinians to conduct terrorist attacks against Israel.
The State Department report also omits any reference to official
Palestinian glorification of terrorists.
For example, after the October shooting of Rabbi Yehuda Glick, Abbas sent
a condolence letter to the family of terrorist Mutaz Hijazi who was
killed by Israeli authorities in a firefight during a raid for his capture.
In the letter, Abbas called the terrorist a "Shahid," a martyr,
who "rose to Heaven while defending our people's rights and holy
places," PMW reported.
Moreover, a senior Fatah official claimed that Hijazi was a Fatah
operative and expressed pride in his actions, a PMW translation shows.
These blatant omissions from the report leave create a sense that
examples of Palestinian incitement to violence and glorification of
terrorists are sporadic occurrences. In reality, the Palestinian Authority
institutionalizes a systematic campaign of violent incitement and continues
to praise terrorists for killing Jews and Israelis, while encouraging other
Palestinians to follow in their footsteps.
|
The IPT accepts no funding from
outside the United States, or from any governmental agency or political or
religious institutions. Your support of The Investigative Project on
Terrorism is critical in winning a battle we cannot afford to lose. All
donations are tax-deductible. Click here to donate online. The
Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation is a recognized 501(c)3
organization.
202-363-8602
- main
202-966-5191
- fax
|
|
Print
Send
Comment
RSS
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment