In recent weeks, the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, along with senior members of his government, has taken to calling just about everything Israel or Israelis do a “crime,” writes Bassam Tawil. But this rhetoric—used to describe individual Jews visiting the Temple Mount, the Balfour Declaration, the killing of a terrorist in a shootout, and so forth—hardly benefits Abbas’s regime in its struggle with Hamas. Quite the contrary:
In the eyes of Abbas and his top officials, a recent visit by Arab journalists to Israel is not only an “unacceptable crime,” but a “political and national sin” as well. . . . Last week, Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction endorsed a statement . . . that called for boycotting an Israeli-Palestinian shopping mall in eastern Jerusalem and warning Palestinians that “economic normalization” with Israel was a “crime” and an act of “intentional treason.”
The daily use of the word “crime” to condemn Israel comes in the context of the Palestinian Authority’s continued effort to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews. This is not a new policy. Abbas and his cronies have long been waging a campaign of hate and incitement against Israel—one that depicts Israelis and Jews as “criminals” and “murderers.” That is the main reason it has become almost impossible to find one Palestinian who is ready to accept any form of concessions or compromise with Israel. This campaign is also the main reason why Hamas has become highly popular among Palestinians, as the latest public-opinion poll published last week showed. . . .
Such messages are driving Palestinians into the open arms of Hamas. If you are telling your people that Israel and the Jews are criminals whose hands drip with blood, and that anyone who does business with them or visits them is guilty of a “crime,” you are telling them that Hamas has gotten it right: Palestinians should be seeking the destruction of Israel, and not peace with it.
Read more on Gatestone: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13472/palestinians-crimes