It’s common practice for news outlets to use boilerplate copy – written text that can be reused in new contexts or applications without significant changes to the original. In the context of clashes or violence in Jerusalem, the media often add a line or a paragraph at the end of reports such as these:
Readers are so used to seeing these words that they are liable to skim over such passages. And from a perspective of media bias, they seem inoffensive and even-handed. But are they really?
It’s time for a fact check.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
The Palestinian Authority’s Territorial Aims
While Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has indeed spoken of establishing an “independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital,” he has repeatedly contradicted himself and revealed his reluctance to give up on the goal of seizing all of the holy city.
In 2009, Abbas’ Fatah faction adopted a position paper that ruled out compromise on the future status of Jerusalem, saying it would prefer to “sacrifice victims until Jerusalem is ours.” A full decade later, Abbas’ position had not changed. In a video uploaded to Abbas’ Facebook page in August 2019 and translated by MEMRI, Abbas is heard saying: “Those who are foreign to this land have no right to it… Jerusalem is ours whether they like it or not.”
When his words triggered members of the crowd to chant the slogan “To Jerusalem we march, martyrs by the millions,” Abbas responded: “We shall enter Jerusalem; millions of fighters!”
While Abbas publicly pays lip service to the idea of two states alongside one another, his rhetoric in Arabic more often than not betrays his desire to bring all of Jerusalem under Palestinian control.
In July 2018, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported Abbas as declaring that Jerusalem is the Palestinians’ “eternal capital” and that there could be “no compromises.” Similarly, he expressed support for Palestinian women harassing Israeli soldiers at a press conference in March 2020, saying it would help “achieve our independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.” No mention is made of East Jerusalem.
Abbas’s words are echoed by other Palestinian politicians, advisors, and religious leaders who have called for the “liberation” of Jerusalem and beyond.
In August 2020, one of Abbas’ advisors, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, said in a television interview that “Jerusalem and Palestine” will be liberated from the occupation and will belong exclusively to the Palestinians. “Palestine and Jerusalem will belong to us alone,” said Al-Habbash. Referring to Israel’s existence as “occupation,” he added: “This occupation will disappear, like all those before it.”
More recently, as fighting raged between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, Musa Al-Rajabi, deputy secretary of Fatah’s Shuafat and Beit Hanina branch (two neighborhoods in Jerusalem) told PA television that, “Jerusalem will not agree to being divided in two. Jerusalem is ours. Jerusalem is Arab, Islamic, and Christian,” Palestinian Media Watch reported.
“We’ll continue to confront it … until the liberation of Palestine; Palestine from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, Palestine which is Arab and Islamic. It will remain ours,” Al-Rajabi added.
Such sentiments are commonplace for Fatah officials. For example, Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi posted a video to his Facebook profile in February 2020 in which he claimed, “our Palestinian land is from the River to the Sea… that is all Waqf land.”
The PLO’s chief negotiator, the late Saeb Erekat, told the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida in June 2017 that, “We are working to end the occupation, to realize the sovereignty of the State of Palestine whose capital is Jerusalem.”
Perhaps most remarkably, in April 2019, Erekat recalled on PA television what he said to Abbas during negotiations with Israel in 2008: “Olmert wants to give you 20 sq. km. more, so that you could say [to Palestinians]: ‘I got more than the 1967 territories.'” Yet that generous offer was declined – more evidence of the Palestinians being less interested in a return to the pre-1967 lines, and ultimately concerned with the total erasure of Israel.
Hamas
The official Hamas position has been clear from its very outset. The Hamas Charter was issued on August 18, 1988. The document is comprised of 36 separate articles, all of which promote the basic Hamas goal of destroying the State of Israel through Jihad (Islamic “Holy War”). The following excerpts illustrate Hamas’ perspective on the two-state solution:
“The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.” (Article 6)
Related Reading: The Hamas Charter: A Manifesto for Destroying Israel
These declarations have been regularly backed up by further statements over the years. For example, in 2017, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh protested against then-President Donald Trump’s announcement that the US would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. “This decision constitutes an official end to the negotiations. Jerusalem is Palestinian, Arab and Islamic,” Haniyeh told Al Jazeera. “This decision won’t alter the reality in Jerusalem and its history.”
A more recent example of Hamas’ unwillingness to countenance the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel can be found in the words of senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar, who said that “This land is not suitable for a two-state solution. It’s either/or” in an interview that aired on Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar) on May 25, 2021.
Referring to Israel’s existence as an “occupation,” Al-Zahar added, “Either the occupation remains forever, an option that has become completely inconceivable – or this occupation will be removed and each [Israeli] will go his way,” before suggesting that Netanyahu “should go to America”, and Lieberman “should go to Russia.”
Islamic Jihad
Similar statements were made by other Palestinian factions. For example, in November 2019, Islamic Jihad leader Khader Habib said in an address aired on Alghad TV (UAE/Egypt) that Israel will disappear and that Jerusalem and Palestine belong to the Palestinians. “Your [Zionist] entity will disappear, and we will remain, Allah willing. Palestine belongs to us. Jerusalem belongs to us.”
Though smaller than Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad is actually an older organization. It is most prominent in Gaza, where it regularly partakes in rocket attacks on Israel, and is committed to the destruction of Israel through Jihad, and the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state from the river to the sea.
The Islamic Jihad founding charter publicly declares its “Jihad against the Jewish existence in Palestine,” and reminds followers that “Jihad is the obligation of every Muslim and must be carried out immediately, regardless of the formation of an Islamic state.”
Religious Leaders
In a February 2020 address at the Al Aqsa mosque, Sheikh Muhhamad Ayed said, “Announce [the establishment] of the Caliphate! March towards Jerusalem! March towards Al-Aqsa [mosque] and liberate it! Retaliate against them and set out for Rome, and then set out for the White House, to that Trump, to Putin, and to others. Let’s conquer the Earth… that means the entire world, and we will conquer it all and rule it through the justice of Islam!”
In May 2021, Imam Yousef Makharzah spoke at the same place in a sermon aired on Hizb ut-Tahrir’s Al-Waqiyah TV (Lebanon), telling the assembled crowds that “The Jews will not even be a part of our consideration, because they are too lowly, too ignoble, too base, and too disgraceful” in a Friday sermon. “Rome shall be conquered, Allah willing.”
His words were similar to those of Palestinian Sheikh Abu Hanifa Awda who said “Jerusalem is where the banners of the Caliphate will flutter” in another address at the Al-Aqsa Mosque that was uploaded to the internet on June 2, 2019. “From here, armies will set out to conquer the world,”Abu Hanifa exclaimed, before listing how the Muslim armies will attack: “One brigade will liberate Palestine… a seventh brigade will lay siege to Rome. An eighth brigade will turn the White House black. A ninth brigade will impose the jizya poll tax on London.”
A January 2020 address at the Al-Aqsa mosque by Palestinian political researcher Sheikh Ahmad Al-Khatwani backs up this perspective. “Palestine cannot really support the existence of two states. The reality in Palestine – in terms of geography and population – is such that there cannot be two states here. There will either be a Jewish state or an Islamic state. We have no space for any state other than an Islamic state.”
Conclusion: Media Truth, Not an Actual Truth
After reviewing multiple sources, it is evident that many Palestinians are clear in their desire to establish a sovereign Palestinian state or a Muslim state in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, thereby obliterating the State of Israel. Extremists such as members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are openly against the concept of a lasting peace with Israel. Even the more moderate elements, such as those in Fatah who talk of commitment to a peace process, also repeatedly declare that the entire land is “Palestinian”. Their ideology is one of displacement; not a fervent desire to live side-by-side with their Jewish neighbours.
In some cases, religious leaders talk openly in terms Western observers would consider akin to that of ISIS followers, with references to the establishment of a Caliphate, meaning that not only is the Jewish State under the threat, but Rome, too, the center of Christianity, and even world capitals such as London and Washington.
As such, the often-repeated line that “Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state” is gravely misleading and not grounded in reality. Though it has been repeated countless times, it simply does not reflect the facts, and — irrespective of intention — journalists who recycle this line are essentially betraying the trust of their audiences and readers by fundamentally misrepresenting the Palestinians’ true intentions. The results of this misinformation are very real: public and international pressure builds on Israel to make peace with a “peace partner” that wants to wipe the Jewish state off the map.
