Official PA daily: Abbas protects the Palestinian youth, but Mashaal uses children's deaths for political gain
Op-ed by Muwaffaq Matar, regular columnist for the official PA daily
“In his meeting with academics at the presidential residence in Ramallah, President Mahmoud Abbas said: ‘I consider each Palestinian child and youth as my own son, and I am responsible for his safety.’ We are thus facing a president and leader free of the aura of leadership, its gleam and insanity, as well as of the glare of the media’s lights and their falseness – as opposed to people who ceaselessly present themselves as leaders, members of the leadership or secretary generals of movements, fronts or parties...
They can be seen as their veins nearly burst from their necks and their tongues all but emit sparks as they use the victims, the children of Palestine and its youth, in their incendiary speeches, which have been unable to protect the Palestinian people since the Nakba (i.e., ‘the catastrophe,’ Palestinian term for the establishment of the State of Israel) befell them a century ago.
People of this sort see the Palestinian as nothing more than a match, which they light to enjoy its flame, or to light fires and dance around them like the jungle tribes that eat the flesh of men and wild animals!...
Immediately after the Israeli Operation Cast Lead (2008-09) against Gaza ended, we read that the head of the Hamas Political Bureau Khaled Mashaal answered a French journalist who had asked him what his people were capable of doing against Israel’s army, the strongest army in the region. Mashaal answered: ‘The Israeli army may achieve progress. But when the world sees the body parts and blood of the Palestinian children, women and elderly the equation will change!”
Note: This article was published during the 2014 Gaza war as Hamas was firing thousands of rockets at Israel and as Israel was responding with Operation Protective Edge, which aimed at destroying Hamas' terror infrastructure and ability to launch rockets at Israel. The article also appeared as Hamas' popularity had risen drastically due to the war, while the PA's popularity was in sharp decline. These findings were shown inthis PSR poll.
“In his meeting with academics at the presidential residence in Ramallah, President Mahmoud Abbas said: ‘I consider each Palestinian child and youth as my own son, and I am responsible for his safety.’ We are thus facing a president and leader free of the aura of leadership, its gleam and insanity, as well as of the glare of the media’s lights and their falseness – as opposed to people who ceaselessly present themselves as leaders, members of the leadership or secretary generals of movements, fronts or parties...
They can be seen as their veins nearly burst from their necks and their tongues all but emit sparks as they use the victims, the children of Palestine and its youth, in their incendiary speeches, which have been unable to protect the Palestinian people since the Nakba (i.e., ‘the catastrophe,’ Palestinian term for the establishment of the State of Israel) befell them a century ago.
People of this sort see the Palestinian as nothing more than a match, which they light to enjoy its flame, or to light fires and dance around them like the jungle tribes that eat the flesh of men and wild animals!...
Immediately after the Israeli Operation Cast Lead (2008-09) against Gaza ended, we read that the head of the Hamas Political Bureau Khaled Mashaal answered a French journalist who had asked him what his people were capable of doing against Israel’s army, the strongest army in the region. Mashaal answered: ‘The Israeli army may achieve progress. But when the world sees the body parts and blood of the Palestinian children, women and elderly the equation will change!”
Note: This article was published during the 2014 Gaza war as Hamas was firing thousands of rockets at Israel and as Israel was responding with Operation Protective Edge, which aimed at destroying Hamas' terror infrastructure and ability to launch rockets at Israel. The article also appeared as Hamas' popularity had risen drastically due to the war, while the PA's popularity was in sharp decline. These findings were shown inthis PSR poll.