Palestinian Media Watch Special Bulletin, September 13, 2001
For years, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has actively promoted hatred of
the United States among its people. The recurring theme: the US is an
imperialist, colonialist usurper of land and human rights, enemy of the Arab
world, killer of Arab children, and supporter of Israel.
Yasser Arafat has repeatedly referred to Saddam Hussein as his “brother”
and has linked an Iraq victory over the US to a Palestinian victory over Israel.
During a period of US-Iraq tension, the editor of the PA official daily wrote that
America would pay for its war against Iraq with “45,000 bodies of American
soldiers will return to the US like airmail. The Arab mothers will not
be the only ones crying…”
The PA Mufti has called for Allah to
destroy America and “paint the White House black.”
This active antipathy to the US espoused and preached by the PA leadership
has created a Palestinian society imbued with hatred toward America. It is
in this atmosphere that Palestinians took to the streets in spontaneous
celebration of the horrific terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
Quickly realizing that there could be nothing more odious to television
viewers in democracies than the sight of Palestinian festivities over the
deaths of Americans, the PA took two measures.
First, PA Minister of
Information Yasser Abed Rabbo demanded of foreign bureau chiefs that they
cease broadcasting the celebrations, and threatened the lives of their staff.
Second, they orchestrated public displays of sympathy for America.
Photos of Arafat donating blood appeared in the press, alongside photos of
Palestinian children carrying signs (in English) expressing solidarity with
“fellow” victims of terrorism.
During the weeks prior to the attacks, PMW noticed an increase in the
anti-American vitriol and incitement appearing in the PA press, including
calls to attack the US:
“The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors of their noble
predecessors … the Lebanese suicide bombers, who taught the US Marines a
tough lesson in … These suicide bombers are the salt of the earth,
the engines of history … They are the most honorable among us…”
“History presents political regimes that were governed by political
and economic greed, and that conquered other lands and peoples with the
intent of robbing and exploiting their resources. Thus did Columbus … who
carried out collective extermination of the original peoples of Latin
America, laying the basis for the Western Colonialism which embraced
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and Natural Selection -theories which presume the technologically primitive nations
to be evolutionary vestiges of the apes …
This is the same ‘Philosophy’ that the Zionist Movement adopted in
Palestine, against the Palestinian people …
This is racism itself, for racism stems from
exaggerating a certain race’s value as opposed to that of all other races
combined, as Hitler did by raising the banner of Arian blood and the
doctrine of blue blood flowing in the veins.
…The United States of America and the Zionist State are two identical
cases of historical development. Each of them came into existence by
invasion and mass extermination of the original residents, and still
occupies land belonging to others…”
“The Zionist Movement is an American invention … The American leaders are
nothing but priests, obedient to their Hebrew High Priest …”
“ … harm American interests in the Arab world,
with all possible means, in all places, at all levels, because the United
States does not understand the language of logic and wisdom, but only the
language of interests and force.”
“Saher Habash, a member of the central committee of the Fatah … said that the body goes but the spirit of the martyrs
lives on. Habash expressed his hope that the Arab and Islamic world will act
against America and Israel … Habash demanded to strike and to threaten the
American interests in the Arab world.”
“ Bush Jr. suffers from a psychological complex in regard
to Arabs in general, whose details we don’t know, even though we don’t serve
alcohol to his two daughters, and there is no Arab who is involved with
their alcohol addiction or with their pursuit by the US police.
What is astounding and surprising is to find a series of articles in
American newspapers by columnists, infected with moral AIDS and. who call on
Israel to deal fast blows to the Palestinians …
These writers, who are Charles Krauthammer, William Safire and Michael
Malley try to portray us as if we are threatening New York and as if
fighting us is an American need and that a good Palestinian is like a good
Indian – dead. This is the culture of the Zionist Lobby that rules even over
the bedrooms of the senior Members of Congress and the White House. It whips
them in the morning and evening for fear lest they awaken from their
servitude. It castrates them and supplies them with ‘Viagra Monica’.
And the last to judge us in this area is the pathetic scoundrel Thomas
Friedman who called upon NATO to conquer the Bank and Gaza in order
to protect his beloved Israel.
These examples of beastly writings which surpass Nazism, require that their
authors be tried in an international court, for they are considered inciters
who have committed crimes against humanity ….”
“ a member of the political bureau of the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine … said in a press conference in Damascus:
“We say to the Arab nation:
“Hit American interests and threaten them. United States is a fundamental
enemy which takes part and holds responsibility to the elimination of the
Palestinian people and the Palestinian villages. He asked the Arab countries
to take a clear and strict position towards USA, which is the a fundamental
enemy of the Palestinian people and Arab Nation.”
Anti American sentiment continues to appear in the PA press even after the
attacks. These will be sent out shortly after the translations are
completed.
