Israeli Arabs are “an extension… of the Palestinian state,” says Fatah official
Official PA TV program Talk of the Hour
Fatah Revolutionary Council member and spokesman Iyad Nasr: “We don't want to harm our people in the Interior (i.e., Palestinian term for Israel). Our people in the Interior were not disconnected from our long path of struggle. Among us and among our Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli prisons are fighters of the Palestinian national movement who were sentenced to life. This is unequivocal proof, the mass uprising in the Palestinian lands that were occupied in 1948 (i.e., Israel) is unequivocal proof of the unity of the Palestinian blood, unequivocal proof of the unity of fate, and unequivocal proof that what negatively affects our people will affect the Palestinian Interior as part of this original people (refers to violent Israeli Arab riots; see note below -Ed.). Why did the occupied Interior rise up? The occupied Interior rose up to support Jerusalem, it rose up to reject the Israeli behavior and the despicable Israeli actions against our people, and this is proof that our people is an absolute partner in pain and hope and an absolute partner in aspirations. Therefore, Israel- When [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu goes towards an ethnically ‘cleansed’ state, he needs to understand that the Palestinians in the Interior are a seed of the Palestinian state and they constitute an extension of this state…
From this place I say to all the national leaders in our people, I say to them: Your people deserves all appreciation and honor for these long years of sacrifice and perseverance. I say that the first solution that we must be loyal to – for all those who passed on, and eternal leader [former PLO Chairman and PA President] Yasser Arafat, [Hamas founder] Martyr Ahmed Yassin, [Islamic Jihad founder] Martyr [Fathi] Shaqaqi, [Palestinian Liberation Front founder] Abu Al-Abbas, and [PFLP Secretary-General] Abu Ali Mustafa, and all the leaders of our homeland – the most important thing in loyalty to them is that the [Hamas-Fatah] rift not continue.”
[Official PA TV, Talk of the Hour, May 29, 2021]
Fatah/Hamas Riot and Rocket War 2021 – On April 30, 2021, facing certain electoral defeat, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas cancelled the first PA elections scheduled in 15 years. Hamas, which expected to win the elections, denounced it as a “coup.” In need of a conflict to divert public discontent, Abbas artificially generated a crisis over Jerusalem. His Fatah party called for "raising the level of confrontation,” and Abbas' spokesman told Palestinians "the battle of all battles is here.” Jerusalem Arabs responded by attacking Jews with rocks and Molotov cocktails. Hamas, Abbas' political rival, could not allow Abbas to lead the battle, so on May 10, 2021, Hamas launched rocket barrages targeting Israeli population centers including Jerusalem. Over the next 11 days, Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired over 4,300 rockets into southern and central Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing 9 Israelis and 3 foreign nationals, and wounding hundreds. In response, Israel launched Operation Guardian of the Walls to target Hamas terror leaders and terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. Already in mid-April, a planned eviction of some Palestinian families illegally living in Jewish-owned buildings in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem had led to clashes between Palestinian residents and Israeli police. This dispute provided Palestinians with a pretext for violent rioting. Adding to the crisis, Israeli Arabs started rioting throughout Israel, especially in cities with a mixed Jewish and Arab population. Two Jews were murdered and many were wounded. According to Walla, an independent Israeli news site, 10 synagogues were wholly or partly burned down; fires were set in 112 Jewish homes and 1 Arab home mistaken for a Jewish home; 386 Jewish homes were plundered and 673 were damaged; 849 cars were set ablaze; and there were 5,018 rock-throwing attacks. In response, Jews started attacking Arabs and their properties as well, but on a much smaller scale. No mosques were burned; 13 Arab homes were damaged; 13 Arab-owned cars were burned; and there were 41 rock-throwing attacks by Jews. [Walla, May 16, 2021] The fighting between Israel and Hamas ended with a ceasefire on May 21, 2021.
Yasser Arafat – Founder of Fatah and former chairman of the PLO and PA. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s Arafat was behind numerous terror attacks against Israelis. Although he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 together with then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East" after signing the Oslo Accords peace agreement, Arafat launched a 5-year terror campaign - the second Intifada (2000-2005) – in which more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered. Arafat died of an illness in 2004.
Ahmed Yassin - Founder and former head of the terror organization Hamas. The Hamas movement is responsible for numerous terror attacks and the murder of hundreds of Israeli civilians. Yassin was killed by Israel in 2004.
Fathi Shaqaqi - Founder of the terror organization Islamic Jihad, which has carried out more than 1,000 terror attacks, murdering and wounding hundreds of Israeli civilians. Shaqaqi was killed in 1995 in an operation attributed to Israel but for which Israel never took responsibility.
Abu Al-Abbas headed the terror organization Palestinian Liberation Front. He planned the hijacking of an Italian cruise ship in 1985, in which one Jewish wheelchair bound hostage, Leon Klinghoffer, was singled out, shot, and then thrown overboard.
Abu Ali Mustafa - Secretary-General of the terror organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP, which rejected the Oslo Accords (1993), has planned and carried out numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians since its founding in 1967 and throughout the Palestinian terror campaign between 2000-2005 (the Intifada).