Fatah Claims Murders as Accomplishments

Fatah, the movement which dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA), claimed murder and terror attacks as achievements on behalf of Palestinian Arabs in a list posted on the social media site Facebook.

According to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a non-profit organization that monitors Arab media in eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and the Gaza Strip, Fatah published the catalog of what it considered to be accomplishments on August 2, 2016. In it, PMW noted, “Fatah did not cite even once peace-seeking or peace-promoting achievement, but only listed Fatah acts of violence and terror.”

PMW reported that a partial inventory of Fatah’s self-selected attainments include: “Fatah has killed 11,000 Israelis,” “Fatah has sacrificed 170,000 Martyrs (Shahids)” and “Fatah led the Palestinian attack on Israel in the U.N.”

Specific terrorist attacks were also highlighted by Fatah. For example, the 1988 bus hijacking and murder of three Israeli civilians traveling to work in Dimona. Fatah has celebrated the Dimona attack before—even producing a 2015 full-length feature film entitled The Revolutionists of the Land, glorifying the “great operation.”

As a recent CAMERA Op-Ed in the Washington Examiner (“Missing the Palestinian after-terror after party,” July 6, 2016) noted, Palestinian celebrations of anti-Jewish violence are not new. In fact, they are common.

Although Fatah often glorifies terrorist attacks, the movement—and its leader PA President Mahmoud Abbas—frequently have been mislabeled by many media outlets as “moderate” (see, for example “Where’s the Coverage? ‘Moderate’ Fatah a Partner in Terror,” July 9, 2014).

The same day that Fatah published its list of “achievements,” Israel announced a new scientific breakthrough. The Times of Israel reported that “civilian airline pilots flying through fog or other limited visibility conditions will soon be able to benefit from an optical system designed by Israeli defense industry leader Elbit Systems (“Israel tech enables pilots to see through fog”).

As CAMERA has often noted (see, for example “Where’s the Coverage? Israeli Technology Gives Sight to the Blind,” Nov. 6, 2013), Israel is a leader in developing technology which, among other things, fights cancer, helps those with visual impairments and disabilities and provides water in regions where it’s scarce. If your national liberation movement is about building, this is what you celebrate. If it’s about destroying, then you honor murder.