Where’s the Coverage? Palestinian Official Calls to ‘Intensify and Develop’ Anti-Israel Violence

Referring to Palestinian Arab terror attacks against Israelis, Fayez Abu Aita, a spokesman for the Fatah movement that controls the Palestinian Authority (PA), has called to “intensify and develop this popular uprising.” Despite frequently quoting him in his role as a Fatah spokesman, major U.S. print news outlets have failed to report these comments.

According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a non-profit organization that translates Arab and Iranian media, Aita’s comments were made on official PA TV on Jan. 21, 2016.

Aita also claimed that the “popular uprising” [a series of stabbing, shooting, vehicular and other attacks since September 2015] is “growing today. It has moral and material support from the Palestinian leadership and from the Fatah movement, so that it will be able to continue.”

The Fatah official did not seem to notice the potential contradiction of calling the anti-Jewish violence a “popular uprising” that also has “moral and material support” from PA and Fatah leadership.

Seeming to support Aita’s contention that the PA supports the continuing terror attacks: On Feb. 3, 2016, PA President Mahmoud Abbas met with the parents of several young Palestinian Arabs who were killed by Israeli security forces while murdering Jews. Abbas did so only hours after three Palestinian Arabs murdered nineteen-year old Border Police officer, Hadar Cohen (“Abbas Signals Solidarity with Terrorism,” The Times of Israel, Feb. 16, 2016).

Despite acknowledging PA support for terror attacks, Aita blamed Israelis for the violence.

Alluding to U.S. and Israeli-led negotiations with PA leaders for a “two-state solution” in return for peace with and recognition of the Jewish state, the Fatah official said, “Palestinian leaders suffered in those negotiations like Job suffered. All the smart-asses say that 20 years have passed and the negotiations have failed. We have suffered like Job, and we are not going for this popular uprising just for fun.”

What Aita did not mention was that Palestinian leaders prolonged either their “suffering,” the negotiations or both by rejecting statehood in exchange for peace with Israel in 2000, 2001 and 2008, among other instances.
Instead, the Fatah spokesman asserted:

“As far as we [the PA and Fatah] are concerned, it [the “stabbing intifada”] will gradually escalate. It plays an extremely significant role at this state, but it could develop into an intifada throughout our homeland. It depends on how much Israel succumbs to the will of the international community, and to the Palestinian people’s right to end the occupation, to self-determination, and to the establishment of the Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital.”

As Fatah’s spokesman, Aita is regularly quoted by news media (see, for example, “Hamas Suspends Voter Registration Process in Gaza,” The New York Times, July 2, 2012). Yet, despite treatment of him as a go-to source, Aita’s recent admission of Palestinian leadership supporting anti-Israeli terror attacks was not mentioned by a single major U.S. print news outlet.

Where’s the coverage?