PA rewrites Hans Christian Andersen's "It's Quite True" - the making of a Corona fairy tale
PA rewrites Hans Christian Andersen - It’s Quite True
- How the PA turned one spit on the ground into a deliberate Israeli plot to infect Palestinians with Coronavirus and “get rid” of all Palestinians
The making of a Corona fairy tale
Once upon a time there was an Israeli soldier who spat. He didn’t spit on a door handle. He didn’t spit on a home. He just spat on the ground near a car.
How the PA turned one spit into a grotesque Israeli plan to infect and get rid of Palestinians, is reminiscent of how one feather turned into five hens in Hans Christian Andersen’s It’s Quite True.
In the fairy tale a hen plucks out one of her feathers and jokingly says that the more she plucks the more beautiful she will be. Another hen tells her friend that the first hen plans to pluck out all her feathers to be more beautiful to catch the rooster. The story is retold and exaggerated by hens, owls, and pigeons until the story comes back to the first hen who doesn’t recognize it is about her since the story now is of five hens who plucked themselves naked, and pecked at each other until they all bled to death. The first hen is shocked and condemns the feather plucking hens.
Seeing how the PA turned that one soldier’s spit into a major Israeli conspiracy to infect Palestinians with Coronavirus, one could almost imagine that the PA was inspired by the famous fairy tale.
Here’s PMW’s presentation of the Palestinian version:
Once upon a time, one Israeli soldier on patrol spat on the ground near a car. The Palestinian Authority wanted to alert Palestinians and rushed to let everyone know in their daily paper: “A few days ago, dozens of occupation soldiers spit on cars of [Palestinian] residents and the door handles of the homes.”
The more the writer wrote, the more details just popped into his head: “Soldiers were seen spitting everywhere in a number of Hebron’s neighborhoods.”
Of course the innocent Palestinian people were horrified and the story“aroused panic among the citizens due to the concern that the soldiers were sick with the Coronavirus and attempting to transmit the disease to the citizens... the residents [went] to clean the streets and disinfect them with chemicals.”[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 30, 2020]
When Palestinians heard this, they started to panic even in other cities miles away. The official PA daily reported that Israelis “walked around ATM machines and businesses in a suspicious manner,” in the town of Hawara south of Nablus,”and the spokesman for the Emergency Committee, Awwad Najm, added that “the settlers got out of their cars and attempted to break into businesses, and also passed their hands over the ATM machines of the banks in the town.”[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 30, 2020]
However all was not lost. The brave Emergency Committee saved the day and “disinfected all of the sites out of concern that the settlers had sprayed suspicious materials that are liable to transmit the Coronavirus or contagious diseases.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 30, 2020]
The official PA Government Spokesman Ibrahim Melhem could not remain silent. He urged people not to be surprised by this behavior, since it is Israeli policy to infect Palestinians: “It is not strange that the settlers and occupation soldiers are doing acts such as these, as they are striving for the epidemic’s spread in Palestine. In addition, they are attempting to approach our laborers and mingle with them in order to transfer the disease to them.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 30, 2020]
Finally, the great PLO Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat warned that this is nothing less than an example of Israeli policy designed to“get rid of the Palestinian people in any way.”Erekat alerted all Palestinians that“when the settler gangs go wild, [of which] the latest example is… the spitting on Palestinian cars and property in order to transfer the Corona disease to them [it is…] the spirit of hate taking root, the spread of the incitement to racism, and the wild desire to get rid of the Palestinian people in any way.”[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 30, 2020]
Erekat further warned Palestinians about the dangerous Israeli “epidemic,” explaining that“Palestine is between two epidemics today: At a time when our entire people is dealing with the Coronavirus… it is dealing with the colonialist occupation epidemic with the same determination.”[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 30, 2020]
And to make sure the world knows about the horrors the Palestinians undergo, Fatah's spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi officially announced the Israeli plot, alleging “that cases have been documented in which the occupation soldiers and settlers were seen contaminating Palestinian property in many Palestinian areas in order to spread the virus among our people– which clearly proves the scope of the racism that is spreading in Israel.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 30, 2020]
Finally, when the Israeli soldier who had spat on the ground heard about all the terrible things Israeli soldiers are doing, he didn’t recognize it as a story about himself, but was shocked and horrified, condemned the spitting soldiers, and he swore that from now on if he had to spit - he would always use a tissue.
The End
This is a classic example of how the PA takes a grain of truth and distorts it into a libel demonizing Israelis and Jews.One soldier spat on the ground, and the PA turned it into a deliberate Israeli plot to bring about the extermination of the Palestinian people by way of the Corona virus.Palestinian Media Watch has previously exposed the anatomy of a PA libel.
The Palestinian Authority is using the Corona crisis to spread hate through libelous accusations against Israel - and it is increasing daily. While Israel is actually training Palestinian doctors and transferring equipment to the PA and the Gaza Strip, the PA is poisoning the minds of its people with endless lies alleging that Israel is trying to harm Palestinians with Coronavirus. Moreover, the PA tones down and even neglect to inform Palestinians of the cooperation between Israel and the PA in fighting the virus.
Thus Fatah claimed that Israel is launching “a biological war against Palestine” and “strives to spread Corona in Palestine”:
Posted text: “Israel launches a biological war against Palestine
After its failure in preventing the spread of the virus – Israel the occupier strives to spread Corona in Palestine.It is opening all of the gates and fences throughout the two districts of Qalqilya and Tulkarem in order to ease the smuggling of Palestinian laborers who were infected inside Israel into their villages without passing through the [PA’s] emergency committees, medical inspections, and quarantine…Palestine has succeeded in controlling the epidemic in the regions it controls and manages, until Israel began to throw the laborers who were infected at the crossings without treatment and without coordination with the Palestinian [PA] health system… Strong Israel is weaker than spider webs, and weak Palestine has recorded its victory and satisfaction on managing a crisis in which large states have not succeeded. Israel has failed three times with Palestine – it has failed in occupation, it has failed in containing the Corona epidemic, and it has failed because it is nowlaunching a biological war against us.
Palestine will triumph.”[Official Fatah Facebook page, March 29, 2020]
The PA and Fatah also reinforced the libel that Israel deliberately acts “to spread the Coronavirus among our people”:
Official PA TV newsreader: “The occupation authorities have opened the agricultural gates … to ease the entry and exit of the laborers – without medical supervision. This is in order to spread the Coronavirus among our people.”
Fatah Secretary in Al-Auja Hussein Njoum: “We, on our part, are preventing these settlers and the Jews from coming to buy in our stores in the village of Al-Auja so that this epidemic will not be transferred. And they – as everyone knows – are intentionally transferring the epidemic to us.”
[Official PA TV News, March 29, 2020]
The official PA daily also alleged that Israel is trying to “thwart” the PA’s efforts to combat the virus, which the PA claimed are far superior to those of Israel:
“The Israeli occupation has raised its ugly head in an attempt to thwart all of the Palestinian efforts, steps of prevention, and precautions… which had surpassed the slow and irresponsible steps taken by the occupation government.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 30, 2020]
Another PA official implied that Israel is sending citizens to pretend to come to buy goods but with the real intention of “transferring the disease”:
Director of Health in the Tubas District Dr. Jamil Daraghmeh: "There is essentially an intent by the occupation to send some of the settlers to the… Bedouin concentrations [in Tubas] on the pretext that they want to buy things in these areas from the supermarkets. We have blocked them. We have directed the residents not to cooperate with them at all and not to cooperate with anyone who comes from the occupied Interior (i.e., Palestinian term for Israel), whether they are one of our Palestinian people who live in the Interior, or Jews coming from the surrounding settlements, as they might be able to transfer this disease, this virus."
[Official PA TV, March 28, 2020]
Contrary to what the PA is telling Palestinians, the UN has acknowledged and praised Israel's efforts in helping the PA fight the Coronavirus and has complimented the Israeli and Palestinian cooperation. “The Israeli and Palestinian authorities are continuing to coordinate their responses closely and constructively,” a statement by the UN said. The UN also noted that:
“Since the beginning of the crisis, Israel has allowed the entry of critical supplies and equipment into Gaza: examples of critical supplies include swabs for collection of samples and other laboratory supplies required for COVID-19 testing, and Personal Protective Equipment to protect health workers. The statement also noted Israel’s cooperation in allowing health workers and other personnel involved in the COVID-19 response to move in and out of the West Bank and Gaza.”
[www.news.un.org, March 28, 2020]
The following are longer excerpts of the reports cited above:
Headline: “Incessant attempts by the occupation to harm ‘the immunity wall’ that the [PA] government has established to defend our people”
“In a new attempt by the occupation to fight the steps of caution and prevention that the Palestinian [PA] government and all of its medical, security, and social bodies have instituted in order to defend our people from the spread of the Coronavirus, the occupation forces have taken a new step: They have opened the iron gates and checkpoints in the racist annexation and expansion wall in the northern West Bank, in order to smuggle a number of Palestinian laborers into the 1948 territories (i.e., Israel). This step has created confusion among the [Palestinian] security and medical teams that have been deployed at the various checkpoints and seam points in order to receive the Palestinian laborers returning from the 1948 territories. This was in response to the call of the [PA] government, which asked them to return to their homes and families after the Corona epidemic has increasingly spread among Israelis …
Since the beginning of the Palestinian campaign to fight the spread of the epidemic, [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas’ declaration of a state of emergency in Palestine, and the preventative steps taken by the Palestinian government following this in order to defend our people, the Israeli occupation has raised its ugly head in an attempt to thwart all of the Palestinian efforts, steps of prevention, and precautions… which had surpassed the slow and irresponsible steps taken by the occupation government…
In occupied Jerusalem the occupation forces have attempted to thwart the Palestinian efforts to disinfect a number of institutions, public facilities, and neighborhoods in the city. They have arrested a number of young Fatah Movement members who donated their modest capabilities to defend our people in the holy city from this epidemic, given the occupation’s neglect of the Palestinian neighborhoods (sic., refers to Palestinians arrested for illegal activity including graffiti)…
In Hebron, the occupation forces have prevented volunteers trained by the [PA] Ministry of Health… from carrying out a campaign to raise awareness and a disinfection operation in the old city and the closed areas next to the Ibrahimi Mosque (i.e., Cave of the Patriarchs) in order to protect against the Coronavirus. But the matter did not end with this; a few days ago dozens of occupation soldiers spit on cars of [Palestinian] residents and the door handles of the homes, which aroused panic among the citizens due to the concern that the soldiers were sick with the Coronavirus and attempting to transmit the disease to the citizens. A video was published on social media in which the soldiers were seen spitting everywhere in a number of Hebron’s neighborhoods, which caused the residents to clean the streets and disinfect them with chemicals (PMW found no such video of several soldiers, but only one short video showing one soldier apparently spitting near one car –Ed.)…
Settlers broke into the town of Hawara south of Nablus and walked around ATM machines and businesses in a suspicious manner. They exploited the fact that the residents remained in their homes after a state of emergency was declared in order to prevent the spread of the disease. This caused the residents to disinfect the places where the settlers had been.
Emergency committee spokesman in Hawara Awwad Najm told [the official PA news agency] WAFA that the settlers got out of their cars and attempted to break into businesses, and also passed their hands over the ATM machines of the banks in the town. Following this, the committee disinfected all of the sites out of concern that the settlers had sprayed suspicious materials that are liable to transmit the Coronavirus or contagious diseases…
Official [PA] Government Spokesman Ibrahim Melhem said: ‘It is not strange that the settlers and occupation soldiers are doing acts such as these, as they are striving for the epidemic’s spread in Palestine. In addition, they are attempting to approach our laborers and mingle with them in order to transfer the disease to them.’”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 30, 2020]
Headline: “Al-Qawasmi: The spread of the Coronavirus has exposed the extent to which racism has spread in Israel”
“Fatah Movement Revolutionary Council member and [Fatah] Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi said that Israel and its settlers are implementing the most despicable racist and terrorist policy against the Palestinian people during the spread of the Coronavirus.
Al-Qawasmi explained that the occupation government is carrying out arrests, demolishing [homes], expropriating lands, and stealing our people’s resources, and that cases have been documented in which the occupation soldiers and settlers were seen contaminating Palestinian property in many Palestinian areas in order to spread the virus among our people (PMW has found no record of such incidents. This possibly refers to a short video showing one soldier apparently spitting near one car –Ed.) – which clearly proves the scope of the racism that is spreading in Israel.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 30, 2020]
Excerpt of an article by PLO Executive Committee Secretary Saeb Erekat
“When the occupation forces arrest young residents of Jerusalem on the charge that they disinfected a number of public institutions and facilities in the city (sic., refers to Palestinians arrested for illegal activity including graffiti), and attack and remove the checkpoints that the residents had established in Masafer Yatta in Hebron in order to check and guide the Palestinian laborers coming from Israel; and when the settler gangs go wild, the latest example of which is… the spitting on Palestinian cars and property in order to transfer the Corona disease to them(PMW has found no record of such incidents. This apparently refers to a short video showing one soldier apparently spitting near one car –Ed.); and when they prevent the entry of more than 140 food products, disinfectants, and cleaners for the Palestinian prisoners numbering over 5,000, and this is under these extraordinary circumstances in light of the Coronavirus; and when they refuse to release hundreds of sick prisoners, including elderly, administrative detainees, children, and women – all of these are expressions of the spirit of hate taking root, the spread of the incitement to racism, and the wild desire to get rid of the Palestinian people in any way…
Palestine is between two epidemics today: At a time when our entire people is dealing with the Coronavirus and fighting to get rid of this epidemic in order to save lives… it is dealing with the colonialist occupation epidemic with the same determination.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 30, 2020]
Saeb Erekat also serves as Fatah Central Committee member and PLO Chief Negotiator.
Image and text posted on the official Fatah Facebook page
The image shows an open security gate photographed at night.
Posted text: “Israel launches a biological war against Palestine
After its failure in preventing the spread of the virus – Israel the occupier strives to spread Corona in Palestine. It is opening all of the gates and fences throughout the two districts of Qalqilya and Tulkarem in order to ease the smuggling of Palestinian laborers who were infected inside Israel into their villages without passing through the [PA’s] emergency committees, medical inspections, and quarantine. It appears that the successful and excellent performance with which Palestine has surpassed the occupation state [limiting the spread of the virus] has embarrassed it and ‘driven it crazy.’ Palestine has succeeded in controlling the epidemic in the regions it controls and manages, until Israel began to throw the laborers who were infected at the crossings without treatment and without coordination with the Palestinian [PA] health system, since it threw a number of laborers near Ni’lin, which is on the Green Line (see note below –Ed.) and near the colonialist Ariel Junction…
Strong Israel is weaker than spider webs, and weak Palestine has recorded its victory and satisfaction on managing a crisis in which large states have not succeeded. Israel has failed three times with Palestine – it has failed in occupation, it has failed in containing the Corona epidemic, and it has failed because it is now launching a biological war against us.
Palestine will triumph
Taken from the page of Walid Assaf, [with the rank of] minister, Chairman of The Committee [to Resist] Settlements and the Wall”
[Official Fatah Facebook page, March 29, 2020]
Green Line - 1949-1967 ceasefire line between Israel and the neighboring Arab countries (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) following Israel's War of Independence (1948-1949). Land within the Green Line is all part of the State of Israel since 1949. Land outside the Green Line includes East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.