Palestinian Security ‘Shares’ Call to ‘Water’ anti-Israel Fight ‘With Blood’

PA President Mahmoud Abbas

The Facebook page of Adnan al-Damiri, official spokesman for Palestinian Authority (PA) Security Forces, posted a message on Dec. 21, 2015 calling for “revolution” against Israel.

According to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a non-profit organization that monitors Arab media in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), the Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem, al-Damiri’s official Facebook page shared the message from the Fatah Shabiba youth movement. The majority of PA officials belong to the Fatah movement, including current President Mahmoud Abbas.

The message stated:

“Teach your children to love the land
Teach them that we live a life of suffering
Teach them that there is a
seed in the ground If they water it with blood, a
revolution will flower
Teach them that Fatah is the
eternal revolution
That the ‘Storm’
Is the blade of the intifada
And that the Shabiba are the knights of the rocks” [.]

The post also celebrated the first Fatah attack against Israel, which it claims took place in 1965 (other sources, such as the Jewish Virtual Library, date the first attack as occurring in 1964).

PMW notes that Fatah also has recently shared cartoons on its Web site that encourage anti-Jewish violence and glorification of martyrdom. One such cartoon, shared by Fatah’s Information and Culture Commission on December 27, depicted a Palestinian Arab emerging from the blood of a dead compatriot clasping a rock and slingshot. This blood-covered Palestinian continues to throw rocks at an Israeli soldier.

Ten days earlier, PA Deputy Minister of Information Mahmoud Khalifa and Nida Younis, head of the PA’s Press Office, denied inciting anti-Jewish violence and accused PMW of “incitement against Palestinians.”

PMW notes that the use of cartoons and social media by Fatah and the PA to glorify terrorist attacks against Israel is common—and frequently mirrors statements by PA officials, such as Abbas encouraging spilling blood in Jerusalem in a Sept. 16, 2015 speech on official PA T.V.

A cartoon in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida [an official PA daily newspaper] on December 26 features Santa Claus approaching a Palestinian “martyr’s” mother who tells him, “I want to bury my son in the bosom of the land he redeemed with his blood, and [I ask] that he not remain in the Zionist refrigerators [referring to terrorists’ bodies being held temporarily by Israel before being transferred to the PA].”

According to the Oslo diplomatic process of the 1990s and the accords that created the PA and allowed for limited Palestinian Arab self-rule in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the authority is required to prevent both incitement to and acts of, anti-Jewish violence. The agreement also called for greater cooperation between Israeli and PA security forces, with the latter receiving training and assistance from the U.S. and European forces.

CAMERA previously has documented (“Where’s the Coverage? Palestinian Official Shoots Israeli Soldier,” Dec. 9, 2015) how PA security officials have, at times, committed terror attacks against Israelis, civilian and non-civilian alike.

Are Palestinian Arabs, including members of PA security forces who commit terror attacks, merely ‘sharing’ the incitement to anti-Jewish violence condoned by PA leadership and disseminated through social media, cartoons, and daily newspapers, among other sources? It’s a good question journalists should be asking, and covering the answers.