PLO official calls to “increase the popular resistance”

Headline: “On Land Day Abu Houli calls to increase the popular resistance against the settlement, occupation, and settlers”

“PLO Executive Committee member and Head of the [PLO] Department of Refugee Affairs Dr. Ahmad Abu Houli called to increase the popular resistance (i.e., Palestinian term that also refers to the use of violence and terror) to the settlement and to the Israeli occupation and its settler herds, until removing it from all the territories that were occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine.”

[Donia Al-Watan, independent Palestinian news agency, March 30, 2023; official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 31, 2023]

Land Day – annual commemoration of the general strike and demonstrations organized by Israeli Arab residents of the Galilee on March 30, 1976 to protest the Israeli government's decision to expropriate land in the Galilee for security and building purposes, which it later implemented. During the protests, demonstrators burnt tires, blocked roads, and threw rocks and firebombs. Six demonstrators were shot and killed by the Israeli army and police. Israeli Arabs and Palestinians consider Land Day a national day.

The terms "peaceful uprising/resistance,” and “popular uprising/resistance" are used by PA leaders at times to refer to peaceful protest and at times to refer to deadly terror attacks and terror waves. For example, ‎Mahmoud Abbas defined as “peaceful popular” the murderous terror during the 2015-2016 ‎terror wave (“The Knife Intifada”), in which 40 people were killed (36 Israelis, 1 Palestinian, 2 Americans and 1 Eritrean) and hundreds wounded in stabbings, shootings, and car ramming attacks. Abbas said: "We want peaceful popular uprising, and that’s what this is." https://palwatch.org/page/9276