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‘Moderate’ Fatah Keeps Bragging It Has More Terrorists Than Hamas

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 is refusing to give up its status among Palestinians as the leading terror organization targeting Israelis.

Seeing Hamas’ popularity surge among Palestinians after the October 7 Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel, Fatah — the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s ruling party — has stressed throughout the war that it has more terrorists, prisoners, and “Martyrs” against Israel “than any other faction.”

Already on October 7, Fatah was bragging that it participated in Hamas’ massacre, so as not to be left out of popular Palestinian support for the atrocities.

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) published a video showing terrorists wearing yellow Fatah headbands participating in the terror invasion. Throughout the video, chants of “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is greatest”) are played in the background.

Note that Nahal Oz is not a military base, as claimed by Fatah in the video, but is an Israeli civilian kibbutz, and that most of those murdered on October 7 by Hamas and Fatah terrorists were Israeli civilians.

Since then, Fatah has continued to brag that “more than two-thirds” of terrorist prisoners are from Fatah, and that Fatah was active on the terror scene “even before” October 7. They also emphasize the great number of dead Fatah terrorists — the so-called “Martyrs” — who are also said to far outnumber Hamas’ “Martyrs” in general.

Furthermore, Fatah officials take pride in the fact that not only are their members terrorists, but, at the same time, some of them are also members of the PA Security Forces carrying out a double role as police officers by day and terrorists by night, as PMW has reported in the past.

Western leaders have been eager to promote Fatah and the PA as “moderates” who are suitable to form a new government in the Gaza Strip “the day after” the war. They would do well to read and watch these statements, and understand who the PA and Fatah really are.

Fatah official brags: Fatah has more terrorists than any other faction

Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki: “We [in Fatah] are peaceful, but our Martyrs [i.e., dead terrorists] are more numerous than the Martyrs of all the factions combined,and also our prisoners [i.e., terrorists] are more than two-thirds of the prisoners in the prisons.” [emphasis added]

[Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki, Facebook page, May 16, 2024]

Fatah official brags: “Even before” Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, Fatah “had already sacrificed more than 133,000 Martyrs”

Fatah Revolutionary Council member Abdallah Kmeil: “Even before Oct. 7, we had already sacrificed more than 133,000 Martyrs, and these are Fatah’s statistics. Fatah alone sacrificed 133,000 Martyrs throughout the years of the Palestinian revolution.” [emphasis added]

[Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, May 21, 2024]

Fatah: Most terrorist “Martyrs” are from PA Security Forces or Fatah

Fatah Spokesman and Fatah Revolutionary Council member Jamal Nazzal: “In recent years, most of the Martyrs  were from the [PA] Security [Forces] or from Fatah, and this has significance and meaning that everyone sees. The West Bank, in other words the PA, as you see is not in a state of repose, calm, submission, or waiting.” [emphasis added]

[Alghad TV (Egypt), YouTube channel, March 21, 2024]

Fatah spokesman brags of Fatah terror: “More than half” of terrorist prisoners are from Fatah, some are PA Security Forces members

Fatah Spokesman Abd Al-Fattah Doleh: “Most of the Martyrs in the West Bank since the aggression [i.e., Gaza war] and even before that are Fatah members. More than that, they’re from the [PA] Security Forces… More than half of the prisoners in the occupation’s (i.e., Israel’s) prisons are Fatah members. The other half, in other words, less than half are from all the rest of the factions together. 90% more or less of the Martyrs who ascended to Heaven in the Palestinian West Bank are from Fatah.” [emphasis added]

[“Fateh_Pal65,” X (Twitter) account, Nov. 20, 2023]

Fatah Deputy Secretary: “A great number of the Martyrs are members of [the PA] security forces and Fatah activists”

Fatah Central Committee Deputy Secretary Sabri Saidam [in a] speech he gave on behalf of Fatah … emphasized that … those who ask where Fatah stands regarding what is happening [in the Gaza Strip], the answer lies in how a great number of the Martyrs who have ascended to Heaven in the Gaza Strip and West Bank are members of its security forces and Fatah activists. .. and how more than half of the prisoners are Fatah members” [emphasis added]

[WAFA, official PA news agency, Dec. 31, 2023]

Fatah official: Even Hamas and Islamic Jihad admit “majority of life-sentenced” terrorists are from Fatah 

Fatah Revolutionary Council member Abdallah Kmeil: “Even Hamas and the Hamas leaders say, and the brothers in Islamic Jihad also say that the great majority of those who were sentenced to long [prison] terms, the life-sentenced prisoners in the Israeli prison, are Fatah Movement members and [PA] Security Forces members.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, Dec. 18, 2023]

Fatah spokesman: “More than half” of the terrorists in prison “are from Fatah”

Official Fatah Spokesman Abd Al-Fattah Doleh: “Today we are speaking about nearly 8,000 prisoners inside the occupation’s  prisons. More than half of the prisoners’ movement are from Fatah, and the remaining less than half are from the rest of the factions together. This shows that Fatah still adheres to the benefit of the struggle. It has carried the flag of armed struggle, it carried the flag of popular resistance in the Stone Intifada (i.e., 200 Israelis murdered), it returned to armed resistance in the Al-Aqsa Intifada (i.e., 1,100 Israelis murdered), and today it is in favor of popular resistance (i.e., violence and terror), and these strategies change and replace each other at every stage, but Fatah has not abandoned any one of its (i.e., terror) options.” [emphasis added]

[Falestinona, Fatah’s Information and Culture Commission in Lebanon, YouTube channel, Jan. 1, 2024]

Fatah official in Lebanon: “75%” of terrorist prisoners are from Fatah

“Secretary of Fatah and the PLO factions in Lebanon Fathi Abu Al-Ardat said: ‘59 years of Martyrs – tens and even hundreds of thousands of Martyrs – of wounded, and of heroic prisoners in the occupation’s prisons. Yes, 75% of these prisoners are from Fatah, with full honor and pride.’” [emphasis added]

[WAFA, official PA news agency, Dec. 31, 2023]

Fatah official stresses Fatah’s support for Hamas, “all Palestinian forces are fighting” against Israel

Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi: “The Israeli steps and the situation that existed before Oct. 7 are what led to what happened on Oct. 7 … Everything that happened is what led to this explosion…In the West Bank, all the Palestinian forces are fighting against the occupation. They are all united and are everywhere and in all the cities, fighting as one with a joint decision against this occupation and against this aggression.” [emphasis added]

[Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi, Facebook page, Oct. 25, 2023]

Fatah official: “Fatah has never relinquished the rifle” and “participates” in Hamas’ war on Israel

Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi: “Who said that Fatah is not participating in the fighting (i.e., Hamas’ terror war on Israel)? Who gave you this information and misled you that we are not participating? … All the Palestinian organizations in the West Bank are fighting and coordinating among themselves on the ground… How many Martyrs are from Fatah? … Fatah has never relinquished the rifle, and it has never relinquished the struggle.” [emphasis added]

[Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi, Facebook page, Nov. 18, 2023]

PLO official: “No Palestinian will condemn” massacre of Israel on Oct. 7, Hamas and Fatah “together in struggle until [Israel] disappears”

Head of the PLO Political and National Guidance Commission and PA Security Forces Spokesperson Talal Dweikat: “Not just His Honor President Mahmoud Abbas. They will not find [one] Palestinian who will make a decision like this and condemn what happened on Oct. 7… Currently the [Hamas-Fatah] rift in the Palestinian mindset is already behind us. Today we are all united against this [Israeli] aggression, and the occupation and all those attempting to break the Palestinian unity will be unable to succeed with these plans… We will continue together in our struggle at all levels until this occupation disappears, and until a Palestinian boy and girl wave the flag of Palestine from the minarets, walls, and churches in Jerusalem.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, Nov. 12, 2023]

Fatah official two weeks after Hamas’ massacre on Oct. 7: “We are united and aiming our bullets” at Israel

Fatah Nablus Branch Secretary Muhammad Hamdan: “We as the Palestinian people are united in all the arenas of confrontation. We are united and aiming our bullets at the occupier and at the settlers.” [emphasis added]

[Fatah Movement – Nablus Branch, Facebook page, Oct. 21, 2023]

For decades, PMW has documented that the PA and Fatah glorify and financially reward terror, profiling themselves to Palestinians as leading the terror campaign against Israel. For example, at the end of 2022, Fatah stressed that it had murdered 20 Israelis that year and that 90% of terrorist “Martyrs” were Fatah members. Back in 2016, PMW exposed that Fatah took pride in the fact that it has murdered 11,000 Israelis.

The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.

The post ‘Moderate’ Fatah Keeps Bragging It Has More Terrorists Than Hamas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan Officially Sanctioned by Trump Admin, Banned From Entering US

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

The United States has imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan in accordance with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, the US Treasury Department confirmed on Thursday.

Khan was sanctioned by the US after spearheading the ICC’s issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over their role in the ongoing war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.

The White House announced on Monday that Khan would be the first member of the ICC to be issued personal sanctions, and both the White House and Treasury Department noted on Thursday that he has been added to the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List.

Khan’s assets in the United States are now frozen, and he is banned from entering the country. The announcement came on the heels of Trump’s executive order last week to punish members of the ICC for targeting Israel.

Trump’s order lambasted the ICC for its “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.” Trump stated that the ICC “abused its power” to pursue an unsubstantiated and politically motivated criminal case against Israeli leaders. 

The ICC responded to Trump with a forceful condemnation, stressing that the court produces “independent and impartial” work. 

“The court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world,” the ICC said.

Trump signed the executive order after Senate Democrats blocked legislation to sanction the ICC in January. The bill ultimately failed by a vote of 54-45, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) being the sole Democrat to vote in favor of punishing the ICC. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) criticized the bill as “poorly drafted and deeply problematic.” The House had passed the legislation.

In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and now-deceased Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which has provided significant humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave throughout the war.

US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.

The post ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan Officially Sanctioned by Trump Admin, Banned From Entering US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Boston Judge Dismisses Hate Crime Charges Against Harvard Students for Assault of Jewish Peer

Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

A Boston Municipal Court judge has dismissed hate crime charges against two Harvard University graduate students who allegedly assaulted a Jewish student at the school in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, The Harvard Crimson reported on Wednesday.

As previously reported, an anti-Israel demonstration escalated to apparent harassment when Ibrahim Bharmal, former editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, and Elom Tettey-Tamaklo were filmed encircling a Jewish student with a mob that screamed “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at him while he desperately attempted to free himself from the mass of bodies.

Antisemitism on Harvard’s campus skyrocketed after the Oct. 7 atrocities. Harvard stood out as a hub of pro-Hamas support for the terrorist group’s massacre of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 hostages in the deadliest single-day attack on Jews since the Holocaust. While Hamas’s brutal treatment of civilians — which included rape, torture, and beheading of children — shocked the world and led to international condemnation, it emboldened pro-Hamas Harvard students, and later, Harvard faculty to target Jewish and pro-Israel members of the campus community with harassment and intimidation.

Following the Oct. 2023 mobbing of a Jewish student, Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo were charged by the local district attorney with assault, battery, and violations of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Acts, a hate crime statute that forbids the obstruction of “free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege” — to which they pleaded not guilty.

The hate crime charge was dismissed on Monday by Judge Stephen McClenon. The students will still face one misdemeanor count of assault and battery each.

According to The Washington Free Beacon, Bharmal has been continuously rewarded with new and better opportunities since allegedly assaulting the Jewish student. Harvard neither disciplined him nor removed him from the presidency of the Harvard Law Review, a coveted post once held by former US President Barack Obama. As of last year, he was awarded a law clerkship with the Public Defender for the District of Columbia, a government funded agency which provides free legal counsel to “individuals … who are charged with committing serious criminal acts.”

Antisemitism in the US surged to catastrophic and unprecedented levels in 2023 — the year in which Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo’s alleged crimes took place — rising a harrowing 140 percent, according to a 2024 audit conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The ADL recorded 8,873 incidents in 2023 — an average of 24 every day — across the US, amounting to a year unlike any experienced by the American Jewish community since the organization began tracking such data on antisemitic outrages in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all spiked by double and triple digits, with California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Massachusetts accounting for nearly half, or 48 percent, of all that occurred.

The last quarter of the year proved the most injurious, the ADL noted, explaining that after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, 5,204 antisemitic incidents rocked the Jewish community. Across the political spectrum, from white supremacists on the far right to ostensibly left-wing Ivy League universities, antisemites emerged to express solidarity with the Hamas terroistr group, spread antisemitic tropes and blood libels, and openly call for a genocide of the Jewish people in Israel.

Such incidents occurred throughout the US. In California, an elderly Jewish man was killed when an anti-Zionist professor employed by a local community college allegedly pushed him during an argument. At Cornell University in upstate New York, a student threatened to rape and kill Jewish female students and “shoot up” the campus’ Hillel center. In a suburb outside Cleveland, Ohio, a group of vandals desecrated graves at a Jewish cemetery. At Harvard, America’s oldest and, arguably, most prestigious university, a faculty group shared an antisemitic cartoon depicting a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David dangling two men of color from a noose.

Other outrages were expressive but subtle. In November, large numbers of people traveling to attend the “March for Israel” in Washington, DC either could not show up or were forced to scramble last second and final alternative transportation because numerous bus drivers allegedly refused to transport them there. Hundreds of American Jews from Detroit, for example, were left stranded at Dulles Airport, according to multiple reports.

In another case at Yale University, a campus newspaper came under fire for removing from a student’s column what it called “unsubstantiated claims” of Hamas raping Israeli women, marking a rare occasion in which the publication openly doubted reports of sexual assault.

Harvard University recently agreed, on paper, to be part of the solution for eradicating antisemitism from its own campus.

Last month, it settled two antisemitism lawsuits, which were merged by a federal judge in November 2024, that accused school officials of refusing to discipline perpetrators of antisemitic conduct. Legal counsel for the university initially discredited the students who brought the legal actions, attempting to have their allegations thrown out of court on the grounds that they “lacked standing” and “legally cognizable claim” even as it proclaimed “the importance of the need to address antisemitism at the university,” according to court documents.

With the settlement, which came one day after the inauguration of President US Donald Trump — who has vowed to tax the endowments of universities where antisemitism is rampant — Harvard avoided a lengthy legal fight that could have been interpreted by the Jewish community as a willful refusal to acknowledge the discrimination to which Jewish students are subjected.

“Today’s settlement reflects Harvard’s enduring commitment to ensuring our Jewish students, faculty, and staff are embraced, respected, and supported,” Harvard said in a press release. “We will continue to strengthen our policies, systems, and operations to combat antisemitism and all forms of hate and ensure all members of the Harvard community have the support they need to pursue their academic, research, and professional work and feel they belong on our campus and in our classrooms.”

Per the agreement, the university will apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to its non-discrimination and anti-bullying policies (NDAB), recognize the centrality of Zionism to Jewish identity, and explicitly state that targeting and individual on the basis of their Zionism constitutes a violation of school rules.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Boston Judge Dismisses Hate Crime Charges Against Harvard Students for Assault of Jewish Peer first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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US Democratic Voters Overwhelmingly Sympathize With Palestinians Over Israelis: Poll

Voters line up for the US Senate run-off election, at a polling location in Marietta, Georgia, US, January 5, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar.

Democrats in the US widely sympathize with Palestinians over Israelis, according to a new poll.

The Economist/YouGov poll, which was conducted from Feb. 9-11, found that 35 percent of Democrats indicate their sympathies “are more with” Palestinians, and only 9 percent say they are more sympathetic toward Israelis. Meanwhile, 32 percent of Democrats responded that their sympathies are “about equal” between both Palestinians and Israelis, and another 24 percent were not sure.

Notably, Democratic “sympathies” toward Israelis have dramatically declined in the past two months, coinciding with the transition of the Trump administration into the White House. On Dec. 21, according to the poll, 21 percent of Democrats sympathized more with Israelis and 25 percent sympathized more with Palestinians. On Jan. 18, two days before US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Democratic sympathy for Palestinians climbed to 27 percent. During that same timeframe, sympathies for Israelis plunged to 18 percent among Democrats. 

Republicans are far more sympathetic toward Israel than Democrats are, the poll found. Sixty percent of Republicans expressed sympathy with Israelis this month, while 6 percent expressed more sympathy toward Palestinians.

In October 2023, in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 hostages throughout southern Israel, 73 percent of Republicans indicated more sympathy for Israelis and 3 percent indicated more sympathy for Palestinians. As for Democrats, 34 percent had more sympathy for Israelis immediately following the Oct. 7 massacre, and 16 percent had more sympathy for the Palestinians.

Overall, although a plurality of Americans still supports Israel, sympathy for the Palestinians seems to be gaining steam. American sympathy for Israelis remained virtually unchanged from Jan. 18 to Feb. 8, dropping slightly from 32 percent to 31 percent. However, sympathy for Palestinians spiked from 15 percent to 21 percent within the same three-week span. According to the poll, American support for Palestinians has climbed to its highest level since 2017. 

Trump’s recent proposal to vacate Palestinians from Gaza and build a “Riviera of the Middle East” is unpopular with the American public, according to the poll. Only 19 percent of Americans support the plan, the poll found. The policy proposal suffers from weak support among American liberals, with only 6 percent of Democrats supporting it and 74 percent opposing it. In contrast, Trump’s suggestion to relocate Palestinians into neighboring Arab states enjoys substantially greater support among Republicans, with 39 percent agreeing with Trump’s proposal and 33 percent disagreeing with it. 

The growing partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a major flashpoint in the 16 months following the Oct. 7 terror attacks. Democratic lawmakers have become increasingly critical of Israel’s approach to the Gaza war, potentially reflecting shifting opinions of the Democratic electorate regarding the Jewish state. Although Democrats have repeatedly reiterated that Israel has a right to “defend itself,” many have raised concerns over the Jewish state’s conduct in the war in Gaza, reportedly exerting private pressure on former US President Joe Biden to adopt a more adversarial stance against Israel and display more public sympathy for the Palestinians. In November, 17 Democratic senators voted to impose a partial arms embargo on Israel, sparking outrage among supporters of the Jewish state.

The post US Democratic Voters Overwhelmingly Sympathize With Palestinians Over Israelis: Poll first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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