RSS
Palestinian Leaders in the West Bank Still Celebrate and Justify Oct. 7 Massacre
People hold Fatah flags during a protest in support of the people of Gaza, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, in Hebron, in the West Bank, Oct. 27, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma
Fatah, the ruling political party of the Palestinian Authority (PA), continues to revel in the October 7 massacre, and to wish for similar attacks in the future.
In a television interview that he posted to his Facebook page, a senior Fatah official, Abbas Zaki, expressed pride in the terrorists’ success, as well as in the popular support and actions by the Palestinians following the attacks. He hailed the massacre as something that will be studied in universities, and he described terrorist prisoners, including those who perpetrated heinous attacks prior to October 7, as “precious treasure.”
Zaki also called for ongoing “resistance in all its various forms,” besides diplomatic and political efforts.
Furthermore, it is worth noting that the PA likes to present itself as a victim of not only Israel, but of the entire Western world. Zaki expresses this with the claim that the October 7 attack overcame NATO forces and “all the West’s capabilities.” He defined Israel merely as a mercenary.
Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki:
Posted text: “Fatah Central Committee member and [Fatah] General Commissioner for Arab and China Relations Abbas Zaki was interviewed on the [TV] channel Palestine Today … He noted that there must be an integration of Palestinian diplomatic and political activity at various international sites — especially at the UN Security Council, the UN Human Rights Council, and the UN General Assembly — and resistance in all its various forms.
Video: “People are surprised given the mighty [Palestinian] resolve and how the entire NATO treaty, all the West’s capabilities, together with all their [Israel’s] mercenaries and collaborators, were unable to silence the [resistance’s] fighters’ rifles and rockets. …
The Al-Aqsa Flood [Oct. 7 attack] will be studied in the universities and echoed widely, because the owners of the right [i.e., the Palestinians] held onto their homeland [i.e., Israeli land] and succeeded in defeating every kind of tyrannical party or alliance … They are a source of pride.
If [Ahmad] Sa’adat, Marwan [Barghouti], and Nael [Barghouti] [i.e., all terrorist prisoners] will be released, if all these prisoners … if they will be released, they are a precious treasure. It is enough that we succeeded in releasing them from the enemy’s claws.” [emphasis added]
[Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki, Facebook page, June 2, 2024]
In addition, Jibril Rajoub, who is the Fatah Central Committee Secretary, asserted that the October 7 attacks were a legitimate response to Israeli policies:
“Our conflict with this occupation [i.e., Israel] has been open since 1948 and until now. … Our behavior in all the circles and all platforms is based on the fact that what happened on Oct. 7 is a response to this occupation’s crimes…” [emphasis added]
[Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, June 2, 2024]
Since the attacks of October 7, Rajoub has been praising the Hamas operation. He has been relentless in calling it a war of defense against Israel’s creation in 1948, and even a “battle of heroism.”
He also refused to distance the PA from Hamas, and described Hamas as “part of the Palestinian social fabric”:
[Rajoub] added that Fatah thinks that “Hamas is part of the Palestinian social fabric.” [He] said that “the Al-Aqsa Flood” operation and the Palestinian resistance’s attack on Oct. 7, which Hamas’ military wing, the Martyr Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, launched against the occupation’s settlements is “an additional battle of heroism and a war of defense in the 75-year history of the Palestinian resistance.” [emphasis added]
[Wattan, independent Palestinian news agency, Dec. 22, 2023]
Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “What happened on Oct. 7 is part of a war of defense that the Palestinian people is waging against this occupation [i.e., Israel] in response to the Israeli crimes that are a continuation of the same crimes that are 76 years old today, which is the age of this occupation, against all of Palestine and the Palestinians.” [emphasis added]
[Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Jan. 17, 2024]
Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “What happened in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7 is part of a war of defense that the Palestinian people carried out…” [emphasis added]
[Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Dec. 28, 2023]
After the October 7 massacre, the US pressured the Palestinian Authority to condemn the Hamas atrocities, but the PA refused. By now, Palestinian Media Watch has reported so many PA and Fatah statements defending, justifying, and celebrating October 7 that it is clear that the PA’s refusal to condemn was not merely for public relations purposes.
Rather, the PA genuinely supported and still supports the atrocities. It is no surprise that when Palestinians were asked about whether October 7 and the ongoing events made them feel pride, 98% of Palestinians answered “yes” according to the Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD). With both Hamas and Fatah seeing the massacre, rapes, torture, hostage-taking, and all the other atrocities as heroic, there is no reason to expect the entire Palestinian population who were raised on PA/Fatah/Hamas ideologies to see things any differently.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is PMW’s Founder and Director. A version of this article originally appeared at PMW.
The post Palestinian Leaders in the West Bank Still Celebrate and Justify Oct. 7 Massacre first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
RSS
Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
RSS
Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.