Communicated by the Israel Government Press Office, March 22, 1999
The October 23, 1998 Wye River memorandum requires the Palestinian Authority (PA) to:
“take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crime and hostilities directed against the Israeli side and to prevent incitement.”
Nevertheless, senior PA officials and the official PA media continue to incite violence against Israel, as the following examples from the past three weeks illustrate:
“We carried out the longest intifada in history. They should know that we can start it again if they try to prevent us from exercising our rights. The state will be established with Jerusalem as its capital whether they like it or not. If they don’t like it they can drink from the waters of the Dead Sea. We, the Fatah and the PLO, are ready to fight a new battle of Karameh every single day if anyone tries to stop us from exercising our rights, particularly that of proclaiming an independent state.”
— PA Chairman Yasser Arafat in a speech to 3,000 Fatah members in Ramallah marking 31 years since Israeli forces clashed with Jordanian soldiers defending the Palestinian terrorist base in Karameh, Jordan (Agence France Presse, March 19, 1999; Jordan Times, March 20, 1999)
“The battle for Jerusalem is near. It requires determination and it carries a heavy responsibility for it is the key to war and peace.”
— PA Minister for Jerusalem Affairs Faisal Husseini at a conference of the Fatah Youth Organization in Al-Bireh (official PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, March 14, 1999)
“Netanyahu continues with his racist policy and his boasting of his imaginary power, which will be removed just as the dictatorial and colonialist Crusader power was removed in the past. We think that the Jewish danger threatens the Palestinian and Arab lands just as the American danger threatens the Arab and Islamic nation.”
— article in the official PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, March 8, 1999
“We are right to believe that the rifle is a means of life and not death.”
— Othman Abu Gharbiya, adviser to Chairman Arafat and head of the PA’s National Guidance Directorate, at a ceremony in Gaza (official PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, March 1, 1999)
