Today, President Trump will host PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. In honor of this visit, we listed 10 important facts which shatter the Palestinian leader’s image as a “man of peace”.
Donald Trump is hosting Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas today, in the Palestinian leader’s first official visit to the White House under the new administration. In honor of the meeting, we collected a number of important facts on the work of the PA Chairman in the past and present. The following facts, should they arise during the meeting, will likely cause a great deal of discomfort on the Palestinian side.
1. Mahmoud Abbas Was an Active Terrorist
Abbas was one of the planners and primary funders of the massacre of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich 1972. One of the planners of the horrific slaughter, Abu Daoud, testified that Abbas was responsible for funding the massacre. Not only does the Palestinian leader not regret his role in the murder of the Israeli athletes — he brags about it. Last September, the official Facebook page of the Fatah movement, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, described the murderous attack as an “heroic operation”, and described it as a demonstration of “the meaning of the courage and power of the Palestinian resistance fighter and his self-sacrifice for the homeland and for the cause.”
2. Abbas Commemorates Detestable Murderers
In May 2013, Abbas granted the Star of Honor to Nayef Hawatmeh, leader of the Palestinian terrorist group the PFLP – Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – and the planner of the infamous Ma’alot massacre in 1974 where 22 schoolchildren were executed. The Palestinian leader awarded the mastermind of the murder of children “in recognition of his important national role in service of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people, and to acknowledge his efforts to raise the flag of Palestine since the launch of the Palestinian revolution, through the stages of the ongoing struggle”.
3. Abbas is a Holocaust Denier
In his doctorate, called The Other Side: The Secret Ties Between the Nazis and Zionism (Arabic), Abbas questions the historical truth of six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. He noted in his thesis that “there are rumors” that the number of victims reached six million. However, Abbas claims, no-one can confirm this number: “The number of Jewish victims might be six million, and it might be much smaller, perhaps even less than a million.”
Furthermore, Abbas is deeply invested in conspiracy theories about an alleged Zionist-Nazi collaboration, and writes that the heads of the Zionist movement “granted legitimacy to every racist in the world, and especially Hitler, to do as they wish with the Jews in their power with the long-term aim of those Jews immigrating to Palestine.”
It should be noted that it was Haj Amin al-Husseini, considered the leader of the Arabs of the Land of Israel in WWII, who closely collaborated with Hitler — with the aim of exterminating the Jewish population in the Land of Israel and throughout the Middle East. These solid facts do not of course appear in Abbas’s false doctorate.
4. Abbas continues to incite violence against Israelis even today
“We will not allow the dirty feet of the Jews to defile the al-Aqsa mosque,” he said in September 2015, making it clear that he blessed “every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah.” Abbas’s statement was made in the midst of the latest terror wave, during which 43 Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists.
In a speech he gave before the European Parliament last June, Abbas spread anti-Semitic blood libels about Israel, when he claimed that “a number of rabbis in Israel made a clear announcement, demanding that their government poison the water to kill the Palestinians.” Later he “corrected” his words, but the official Palestinian media continues to spread the anti-Semitic libel. At the same time, the Palestinian leader has refused to condemn acts of terror like the horrific murder of 13-year old Hallel Yafa Ariel in her bed in Kiryat Araba. The IDF even claimed that Ariel’s murderer was inspired by one of Abbas’s advisors.
Abbas has also hosted the families of murderers killed while carrying out terror attacks, even calling them “shahids” – martyrs – more than once who “saturate the land of Palestine with their blood.” In addition, the official Facebook page of Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas’s movement, is loaded with expressions of support for terror and encouragement of the murder of Israelis.
5. The Palestinian Authority Under Abbas Supports Terrorist Financially
The PA pays enormous salaries to terrorists sitting in Israeli jails and their families — with the sum going up in accordance with the amount of Israeli blood they have on their hands.
According to Palestine Media Watch, in 2016, the PA handed out more than $180 million to some 32,000 families of terrorists. The PA has made it clear that despite the demands of the Trump administration, they have no intention of stopping or even cutting their support for terrorists and their families.
The PA’s Prison Affairs Minister even declared that despite the decision of the PA to end support for the residents of the Gaza Strip, ruled by the Hamas terror organization, Mahmoud Abbas and his people will not touch the payment of salaries to terrorists.
6. Abbas Violates the US Demand to Stop Supporting Terrorists
Under Abbas, PA defies the clear demand of the US to stop supporting terrorists, even though it cannot exist without American support. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Palestinians are world leaders in foreign aid per capita. According to Caroline Glick, the Americans transfer $600 million annually on average to the PA — the highest per capita aid package for a foreign entity. The Palestinians also received enormous sums of money from other international organizations. For instance, some $6.7 billion(!) was transferred to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza as “humanitarian aid.”
Despite the flood of cash rained on Abbas’s head, the PA’s budget deficit for 2016, before factoring in foreign money, stands at the particularly high rate of 32.5% (just for comparison’s sake: Israel’s deficit in 2016 was just 2.5%).
7. Abbas Aims to the Elimination of Israel as a Jewish State
Abbas intends to do so by flooding it with millions of Palestinians from around the world. The Palestinian leader even expressed his desire to return to his birthplace, the city of Tzfat, and which is located within the Green Line. “Six million of my people are waiting to return to Palestine, and so am I,” Abbas said last September. At the same time, the PA Chairman refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, as demanded by Prime Minister Netanyahu. “We will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” Mahmoud Abbas declared, clarifying once again that “We will not give up the Right of Return.”
8. Abbas Distorts the Palestinian Democracy
He has no mandate to serve as the PA Chairman, as he has prevented new elections for the position for over eight years. In January 2005, after the death of previous chairman Yasser Arafat, Abbas was elected to the position, and the next elections were supposed to take place four years later, in January 2009. These elections never took place and Abbas continues to remain in power without electoral approval.
9. Abbas is a Tyrant
The Palestinian leader not only prevents the holding of democratic elections, but also exploits his position to harass political opponents. In recent months, Abbas decided to remove the parliamentary immunity of five Palestinian legislators, considered to be his bitter rivals and to allow the PA’s security forces to arrest and interrogate them. The most senior legislator whose immunity was removed is also Abbas’s biggest rival, Mohammad Dahlan. Last December, a Palestinian court convicted Dahlan and other rivals of Mahmoud Abbas with charges of corruption and sentenced them to three years in prison. The trial was convicted in absentia regarding Dahlan, as the latter left Judea and Samaria in the wake of a clash with Mahmoud Abbas. Dahlan has been residing in the United Arab Emirates since 2011.
10. Abbas is an Enemy of Free Speech and Human Rights
Abbas fights his “internal enemies” with torture and harassment of journalists. “The guards chained my arms and legs and beat me for an hour and a half,” Azam el-Fahl, a Hamas member arrested by the PA, told the BBC. El-Fahl added that the PA officials even forced him to watch how they tortured a senior Hamas member, sheikh Majd el-Barghouti, who died as a result of the torture. Obviously the PA is not the only one torturing political prisoners; Hamas tortures and sometimes executes Fatah members.
The Palestinian leader also harms freedom of the press and unleashes fear and terror against anyone who dares criticizing him. Four years ago, Abbas threw two Palestinian journalists in jail for spreading a mocking caricature of the PA Chairman. In another case, a Palestinian resident was sentenced to a year in prison after creating a caricature presenting Abbas as Ronaldo, the famous soccer player. Only after the Palestinian claimed he intended no harm to the PA Chairman were the charges dropped.
You reverse what is primary and what is secondary. You go through six examples of how Abbas supports terror before finally getting to his fundamental rejection of the Jews’ right to have a state. Too many people think that his cause is only self-determination for his subjects and is therefore the paragon of justice and thus overlook the means used to advance that cause. Whatever the merits of the argument that no cause warrants the Palestinians’ terror spree, it’s not convincing anyone who wasn’t already convinced. Try reversing the argument of ends and means, that Abbas’ true aims are the end of Jewish self-determination, thus NOT a just cause.
To drive home what Abbas’ true objective is, Number 1 on the list should be that Abbas aims to eliminate the Jewish state. This should be followed up with several examples illustrating this point. Examples: Abbas denies that the Jews are a people, Abbas denies denies the Jews’ connection to the land of Israel, Abbas teaches that Israel will go the the way of the Crusader state–that it will disappear if the believers are just steadfast enough, Abbas’ interest in Jerusalem is to assert Islam’s superiority over Judaism by denying Jews their holy sites. Once it is established that Abbas’ objectives are illegitimate, then introduce the illegitimacy of the means, that is his reliance on terror.