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Exposing the Palestinian Authority’s False Claim That Israel Is an ‘Artificial Colonial Implant’
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa signed a Memorandum of Understanding in London, April 28, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
The Palestinian Authority (PA)’s presentation of Israel as a foreign colonial implant in the Middle East is one of the most fundamental parts of its ideology, around which the PA has built the Palestinian identity.
The PA’s denial of thousands of years of Jewish history in the Land of Israel includes the lies that Jews did not live there and would never have thought of settling there until Western colonialism “planted” them in “Palestine.”
According to the false PA narrative, the West hatched Zionism to solve its Jewish problem by getting rid of its society-destroying Jews, who could then serve as a front line “against the Arab states” in the region.
PA leader Mahmoud Abbas explained that Europeans in general suffered from the Jews and “even Hitler … fought the Jews because they worked based on usury and money, in other words, they caused ruin.” Getting rid of the harmful Jews and having a colonial implant is what Abbas called “two birds with one stone.”
The colonialism narrative is central to PA ideology, as it denies Israel any rights to exist in any borders. It also efficiently creates backing around the world for the PA’s claim to “Palestine from the river to the sea.” During the current war, this slogan and the colonialism narrative have been adopted by pro-Palestinian protesters internationally as a definitive truth.
This “satanic project” — as Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash terms Zionism and the creation of Israel — was started by the British, which “brought in strangers who had no connection to Palestine.”
The PA claims that international colonialism wanted to destabilize the Arab region and therefore “created the Zionist idea” and “planted” the Jews in “Palestine”:
Abbas’ advisor: “The British Mandate opened the doors to Jewish immigration to Palestine and brought in strangers who had no connection to Palestine …
Maybe the world will not recognize the [Palestinian] political entity but rather [only] a part of the historical homeland, but the historical homeland will remain all of Palestine (i.e., all of Israel) for all the Palestinians …
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Nov. 29, 2024]
Palestinian Media Watch has exposed numerous statements by Al-Habbash in which he has labeled Jews and Israelis as “Satan” and “evil.”
According to Al-Habbash, Israel now serves “the American colonialist project,” and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu “exploited” Hamas’ massacre and launch of its terror war against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 for this “satanic plot”:
Al-Habbash: “[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu exploited what happened on Oct. 7, 2023 to carry out his satanic plot that strives to eliminate the Palestinian cause and expand the scope of the war into a regional war, with which he will outline anew the geographical and political maps of the region in a way that will serve the American colonialist project, which strives for hegemony and colonialism of a new kind in the Arab region.”
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 9, 2024]
Similarly, top PA and Fatah official Jibril Rajoub has claimed that “the Americans and the Europeans” use Israel to “control the entire region” and its resources:
Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “[Israel] is a project that targets the entire Middle East region.
Israel is a guarantee for the Americans and Europeans to control this entire region, its oil, its sea routes, its economy, everything in it.”
[Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Jan. 15, 2025]
The PA’s answer to why Jews went along with the West’s plans and willingly established themselves in “Palestine,” to which they had no connection, is answered by PA antisemitic ideology: The Jews came for money, lured here by the West with promises that they could earn more money in “Palestine” than elsewhere:
Advisor to Head of The Committee to Resist Settlements and the Wall Ayed Morrar: “If an opportunity was given to the expansionist occupation [i.e., Israel] to settle in Egypt and Jordan they would not miss the opportunity …
There is no religious or emotional connection between a resident of the occupation state and this state. They told him: You earn $1,000 in France, in Palestine you can earn $1,200 or $1,500, and therefore he came for this reason, with international support, to be a military base for the West in the Middle East.”
[Official PA TV, Dec. 12, 2024]
A different explanation was provided by a Tunisian academic who explained that “traditional colonialism” was in fact “Zionist colonialism”:
Political science lecturer Dr. Ibrahim Al-Rifa’i: “Was traditional colonialism just French and British?”
Official PA TV host: “Or Italian?”
Ibrahim Al-Rifa’i: “It was actually Zionist colonialism … They [the Jews] think that the entire world that is outside the circle of Zionism are goyim [i.e., non-Jews] and that Zionist globalization should rule, and they have been waging a world war ever since the time before traditional colonialism. Traditional colonialism was completely Zionist. This colonialism with its various names — British, English, French — was just Zionist colonialism.”
[Official PA TV, Capital of Capitals – Tunis, Feb. 12, 2025]
Official PA TV helps cement the PA narrative that Israel was created as a colonialist outpost. A host on PA TV taught viewers that because the Middle East was “a threat” to “European and American capitalism,” Israel was created as “a hostile entity” in the Arab region and as “a friend to colonialism”:
Official PA TV host: “The establishment of Israel was not a Jewish project, but rather a Zionist project at the initiative of the Zionist bourgeoisie that was all an appendix of the European and American capitalism.
The first who suggested turning this into a realistic fact was [former] British Prime Minister [Sir Henry Campbell-] Bannerman. At the start of a European conference at the start of the 20th century, he said: ‘The European civilization is under threat of disintegration and extinction, and it is our duty to find an effective way to prevent its collapse.’
Then the conference arrived at a plan that requires thwarting any unification or agreement between the Middle East countries because they constitute the only threat to the future of Europe, and the means of achieving this [solution to the problem] is establishing an external national entity that is foreign to the region, hostile to its residents, and a friend to colonialism.”
[Official PA TV, The Philosophy of Endurance, Oct. 26, 2024]
A former PA Security Forces major general stressed that it was Britain that led “the theft” of “Palestine” for the benefit of the “large colonialist project”:
PA Security Forces Maj. Gen. (ret.) Ahmed Issa: “Israel is the only state that was not established by its people on its land. It was established through theft, and it is a product of a large colonialist project led by the colonialist states under the leadership of Britain.”
[Official PA TV, Israel in the News, Oct. 28, 2024]
Abbas’ Fatah Movement sees itself as engaging in “the struggle” ever since in order to “liberate Palestine” from “colonialism”:
Fatah Revolutionary Council member Ahmed Ghneim: “This revolutionary [Fatah] leadership constituted the backbone of Fatah and played a decisive role in the resolution of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation, in addition to its central role in developing the strategy of Fatah, which has not stopped aspiring to liberate the Palestinian territories from colonialism.”
[Al-Quds, Jan. 7, 2025]
Similarly, a regular columnist for the official PA daily claimed that “Israel is a tool for the Crusader states” and all the American administrations:
Columnist for official PA daily Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul: “Israel is a tool … which is pushing towards turning the conflict from a political, economic, cultural, and social conflict into a religious conflict.
The Crusader states, which still have the idea of settling accounts with the Arabs and Muslims nesting in their minds, are still continuing to revolve around [this idea].
[Official PA TV, Sept. 24, 2024]
Palestinian Media Watch reported on a column in the official PA daily in which the writer compared “the colonial West” to the Greek god Zeus giving Israel/Pandora a box of weapons that Israel opened, and that now sows death and destruction in the world.
Representatives from the PLO also support this demonizing false Palestinian narrative. Director of the PLO’s Arab Relations Anwar Abd Al-Hadi recently referred to Israel as “a state that someone put together”:
PLO Arab Relations Director Anwar Abd Al-Hadi: “Israel has no roots in the ground. Israel is a state that someone put together, a state that the West created. A state that is comprised of people with 90 citizenships.
Therefore, if Israel will not give the Palestinian people what it deserves, there will be an explosion inside Israel.”
[Official PA TV, Capital of Capitals – Damascus, Nov. 17, 2024]
A covert reference to Israel as a colonial power was made by a PA district governor, who said that “Palestine will be liberated like it was liberated from the yoke of the ancient colonialist powers”:
Salfit District Governor Abdallah Kmeil: “Palestine will be liberated after years of oppression. This land will be liberated like it was liberated in the past from the yoke of the ancient colonialist powers and the empires that occupied Palestine.
The empires left, the Mongols left, the Romans and the Crusaders left – and Palestine and the Palestinian people remained.”
[Official PA TV, Giants of Endurance, Dec. 27, 2024]
Along the same lines, another PLO official demanded that Jews “return to their origins in Europe and other states from which they came”:
PLO Representative to the UN and International Organizations in Geneva Ibrahim Khreisheh: “Israel is an occupying state, and it needs to end its occupation…
They think according to the religious stories that Greater Israel from the Nile [River] to [the Euphrates River in] Iraq is the land of Greater Israel. Most of them came from various nations and ethnic groups from Europe and other states and stole the Palestinian land. …
Therefore, those who claim their ‘historical right’ [i.e., the Jews] need to return to their origins in Europe and other states from which they came. Palestine will remain for the Palestinians.”
[Official PA TV News, Oct. 12, 2024]
In November 2024, at the Mediterranean Dialogues Conference in Rome, Rawhi Fattouh, the chairman of the Palestinian National Council (the legislative body of the PLO), got up and left a “dialogue meeting” upon seeing that Israeli Parliament Member Yuli Edelstein was also participating, explaining he did so because he refused to “sit with a colonialist who steals lands”:
Chairman of the National Council [Fattouh] cut short the dialogue meeting and resigned from it in protest over the presence of colonialist [Israeli Parliament Member] Yuli Edelstein, who arrived as a representative of the Israeli Parliament…
Fattouh submitted to the participants and the Italian Parliament a protest letter in which he clarified that one should not sit with a colonialist who steals lands, violates international law, and intimidates the native residents…
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 28, 2024]
The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.
The post Exposing the Palestinian Authority’s False Claim That Israel Is an ‘Artificial Colonial Implant’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Al Jazeera Hit With Defamation Lawsuit by Syrian Jewish Ex-Refugee
The Al Jazeera Media Network logo is seen on its headquarters building in Doha, Qatar, June 8, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon
A defamation lawsuit was filed against the Qatar-based Al Jazeera media network on Wednesday by Abraham Hamra, a Syrian pro-Israel advocate and lawyer.
According to the lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Hamra “is a Jewish refugee from Syria, born in Damascus. He fled Syria with his parents and siblings in 1994 at the age of eight, following the partial lifting of restrictions on Jewish emigration by the Syrian regime under President Hafez al-Assad in 1992.”
The Algemeiner obtained a copy of the complaint, which explains that, on Aug. 25, Al Jazeera posted a video claiming that Hamra was paid by the Israeli government to visit an aid site of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israel- and US-backed program that delivers aid directly to Palestinians, operating independently from UN-backed mechanisms.
“This accusation is false in its entirety. Plaintiff has never received any payment, compensation, or financial incentive from the Israeli government or any affiliated entity for visiting aid sites in Gaza,” the lawsuit claims.
“The visit by Plaintiff related to Israel and Gaza was undertaken independently, in his personal capacity, on his own dime, as an advocate for his community and to bear witness against misinformation,” the suit continues.
The UN and critics of Israel have expressed concerns that the GHF’s approach forces civilians to risk their safety by traveling long distances across active conflict zones to reach one of its four food distribution points, at times creating chaotic scenes where Israeli forces have used gunfire to control the crowd.
However, supporters of the GHF argue that it bypasses the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which often steals humanitarian supplies for its own purposes and sells the rest at inflated prices. The GHF has called on the UN to publicly condemn the killing of aid workers in Gaza and to collaborate in order to provide relief to the enclave’s population, accusing the UN of perpetuating a “vast disinformation campaign” aimed at tarnishing the foundation’s image.
The lawsuit notes that the social media post from Al Jazeera, which included the image of Hamra, “cites no sources for the ‘reportedly paid’ claim, and publicly available information about Plaintiff, including his professional bio, social media posts, and known activities, demonstrates he is an independent US attorney with no financial ties to foreign governments.”
Al Jazeera also “failed to conduct even basic fact-checking, such as contacting Plaintiff for comment or verifying the allegation, despite their status as a major media network with resources to do so,” according to the lawsuit.
Al Jazeera did not respond to a request for comment from The Algemeiner.
The lawsuit argues why the allegedly false claim rises to the level of libel, saying it “constitutes libel per se under New York law because it accuses Plaintiff of committing a serious crime, namely, violating FARA [the Foreign Agents Registration Act] by acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Israel, and tends to injure him in his profession as a lawyer.”
“FARA requires individuals acting as agents of foreign principals to register with the US Department of Justice, and failure to do so is a federal offense punishable by fines and imprisonment,” the suit says. “By falsely alleging Plaintiff was paid by a foreign government to promote its interests, the statement implies criminal conduct and undermines his professional integrity.”
Consequently, Hamra is seeking payment for damages of at least $1,00,000 and requesting a trial by jury.
Read the lawsuit here: Hamra v Al Jazeera ECF No. 1 Complaint
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US Lawmakers Launch Investigation Into Wikipedia Over Claims of Systemic Anti-Israel Bias
US Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). Photo: Reuters
The US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has opened an investigation into the nonprofit that operates the Wikipedia website, demanding answers over concerns that hostile foreign actors are exploiting the popular online encyclopedia to spread anti-Israel propaganda and antisemitic narratives.
Republican Reps James Comer (KY), who chairs the committee, and Nancy Mace (SC), who chairs the panel’s subcommittee on cybersecurity, information technology, and government innovation, on Wednesday sent a letter to Maryana Iskander, chief executive of the Wikimedia Foundation, asking the nonprofit to turn over records showing how the platform polices disinformation campaigns that target articles related to Israel and the Middle East.
The lawmakers cited studies showing that pro-Russia networks and other state-backed operations have sought to manipulate Wikipedia entries on conflicts involving Israel, often by inserting anti-Israel or antisemitic framing designed to sway Western audiences. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), for example, published a report earlier this year arguing that “malicious” Wikipedia editors have inserted anti-Israel bias onto the site, oftentimes violating the organization’s neutrality policies in the process.
Meanwhile, a report from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab found evidence of Russian-linked attempts to shape narratives used to train AI chatbots by twisting information about Israel.
“The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating the efforts of foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by US taxpayer dollars to influence US public opinion,” Comer and Mace wrote. They emphasized the importance of stopping organized attempts to “inject bias into important and sensitive topics.”
Specifically, the committee is demanding records on possible coordination by nation-states or academic institutions to influence Wikipedia pages, internal arbitration files documenting how the site has handled editor misconduct, identifying data for accounts flagged for suspicious activity, and any analysis showing patterns of manipulation tied to antisemitism or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The letter also requests details of Wikipedia’s editorial policies to ensure neutrality and prevent the spread of bias.
Although the committee acknowledged that most online platforms face disinformation threats, the letter stressed that Wikipedia’s outsized influence as one of the most visited websites in the world and a key training source for artificial intelligence systems makes it especially important to prevent anti-Israel narratives from taking root unchecked.
The Wikimedia Foundation has previously stated that it takes action against volunteer editors who violate neutrality rules, but lawmakers say further transparency is needed to guarantee accountability.
However, a detailed investigation by Pirate Wires in October 2024 revealed that a powerful group of roughly 40 Wikipedia editors coordinated to “delegitimize Israel, present radical Islamist groups in a favorable light, and reshape the narrative around Israel with alarming influence,” particularly after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. Notably, one editor removed mention of Hamas’s 1988 charter, which calls for the killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel, from the Hamas article just six weeks after the attack. The group also reportedly sought to suppress documented human-rights abuses by Iran, and a related effort by a Discord-based collective known as “Tech For Palestine” coordinated mass editing of articles related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to a report by the Jewish Journal, Wikipedia’s arbitration committee (ArbCom) permanently banned two editors outright for engaging in off-platform coordination tied to the “Tech for Palestine” Discord campaign, citing violations of policies. Additionally, the committee imposed indefinite topic bans on eight editors in the Israeli-Palestinian area for disruptive behavior such as non-neutral editing, personal insults, and misrepresentation of sources. In December 2024, ArbCom permanently banned two anti-Israel editors and placed restrictions on three others for violation of site policies in the Israeli-Palestinian topic area.
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Tunisian Brothers to Face Trial for Cutting Down Olive Tree Honoring Murdered Jew Ilan Halimi in France
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
Two Tunisian twin brothers have been arrested in France after allegedly cutting down an olive tree that had been planted to honor Ilan Halimi, a young French Jewish man tortured to death nearly a decade ago.
According to the Bobigny prosecutor’s office, two 19-year-old undocumented men with prior convictions for theft and violence were arrested for vandalizing Halimi’s memorial in the northern Paris suburb of Épinay-sur-Seine.
Both brothers appeared in criminal court on Wednesday and were remanded in custody pending their trial, scheduled for Oct. 22.
They will face trial on charges of “aggravated destruction of property” and “desecration of a monument dedicated to the memory of the dead on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion,” offenses that, according to prosecutors, carry a sentence of up to two years in prison.
Both suspects were taken into custody around noon on Monday while returning to the crime scene, French media reported.
Investigators tracked them down after discovering two slices of watermelon left by the perpetrators at the base of the olive tree, which contained their DNA.
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, Halimi was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, an olive tree was planted in Halimi’s memory. Earlier this month, the memorial was found felled — probably with a chainsaw — in the northern Paris suburb of Epinay-sur-Seine.
Halimi’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne, where he was found dying near a railway track.
Hervé Chevreau, the mayor of Épinay, announced that a new memorial tree will be planted in the second half of September.
After the attack, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the incident, vowing that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.
“Felling the tree in honor of Ilan Halimi is a second attempt on his life,” the French leader said in a post on X.
Halimi’s sister, Anne-Laure Abitbol, also condemned the incident, warning that public denunciations are no longer enough and calling for concrete action.
“In France, we are no longer safe, neither alive nor dead,” Abitbol told RTL in an interview.
“I feel less safe in France,” she said. “By recognizing a Palestinian state, Macron is encouraging antisemitism and failing to take action against antisemitic attacks in the country.”
Last month, Macron announced that France will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September as part of its “commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
Israeli officials have criticized the move, which was followed by several other Western countries, calling it a “reward for terrorism.”
France’s Jewish community has faced a troubling surge in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Jewish leaders have consistently called on authorities to take swift action against the rising wave of targeted attacks and anti-Jewish hate crimes they continue to face.
According to the French Interior Ministry, 646 antisemitic incidents were recorded from January to June this year — a drop from the previous year’s first-half record high but a 112.5 percent increase compared with the same period in 2023, when 304 incidents were reported.