On Saturday night, Palestinian rioters from the West Bank village of Beita burned a makeshift Nazi swastika juxtaposed against a Star of David, perhaps the most well-known Jewish symbol. The perpetrators, who have been described as “protesters” by foreign journalists, on Sunday repeated the antisemitic act, drawing the ire of Israelis and Jewish activists worldwide.
Responding to the criticism, residents of Beita doubled down and proclaimed that Nazism and Zionism are “two sides of the same coin,” an antisemitic trope according to the widely-adopted IHRA working definition.
Nevertheless, the shocking display of hate was met with utter silence from virtually all major English-language media outlets. Only Breitbart and Russian state media, along with several Israeli and Jewish publications, reported on the matter. This is in stark contrast to the vast media coverage given in April of this year to the story of Israeli extremists who had chanted unacceptable racist slogans at a widely condemned march.
In a bid to draw attention to the antisemitic Beita riots, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Monday took to Twitter to call on the international community and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to condemn the use of Nazi symbols “unequivocally” and to “take action against the instigators who crossed a red line.”
There’s just one problem with Gantz’s well-intended appeal: that is, an HonestReporting investigation has uncovered new evidence suggesting that the Western-backed, “moderate” Palestinian Authority and its ruling Fatah faction are actively supporting these radicals — even after they had openly admitted that their goal is to “burn you [Israelis] alive.”
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First, a brief recap of HonestReporting’s previous publications on this issue (see here and here). For over 100 days, Palestinians from Beita, a town south of Nablus, have caused disturbances in the area. Between May and August 2021, “popular resistance units” reportedly burned over 80,000 tires, severely damaging the environment and posing a serious health threat to West Bank residents – Arabs and Jews alike.
By creating destructive smoke clouds, in addition to employing so-called “night confusion” tactics that were first developed by terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians have tried to drive out residents of nearby Jewish communities. For the last few months, their intensifying efforts have focused on Evyatar, a newly established but highly contested Israeli outpost in the Samaria region of the West Bank.
An area near the West Bank town of Beita beginning to look like the #Gaza border in 2018-2019 with a fairly large explosion during the nightly ‘confusion unit’ activities. pic.twitter.com/Xu7XQe9p5N
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) August 15, 2021
Related Reading: Is the Palestinian Authority Secretly Financing Environmental Terrorism in West Bank?
Over the course of some 14 weeks, seven Palestinians were killed in violent clashes with Israeli security forces. In an effort to reduce tensions, Jerusalem in June backed a deal that saw all Israeli citizens leave the outpost pending an investigation into the ownership of the land.
The residents of Beita, however, rejected the compromise, and the riots subsequently intensified. Over the last week, for example, Palestinians detonated several powerful explosive devices whose shock waves were felt in towns across Samaria.
Fatah Actively Supporting Terror Since Day One
The Oslo Accords — the comprehensive set of agreements between Israel and the Palestinians — oblige the PA to take “all measures” to prevent acts of “terrorism, violence or incitement” (Annex 1). However, information gathered from public sources suggests that Fatah — led by PA President Mahmoud Abbas who has ruled by decree for over a decade — has been doing the exact opposite.
On May 15, just days after the establishment of Evyatar, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — Fatah’s “military wing” — distributed a flyer calling on Palestinians in places surrounding the community to immediately disable cameras facing streets. The communiqué, shared on a Facebook page run by residents of Beita, warned that the US-designated terror group would strike with an “iron fist” against anyone who “tries to tamper with the security of our fighters.” [emphasis added]
Related Reading: PA Confirms Terror Ties
Unsurprisingly, photos and video footage taken during the nighttime riots, posted to Fatah’s official Arabic-language channels, show that the flag of the Palestinian faction was frequently flown by militants from Beita (see for example here, here, and here).
المشاعل تُنيرُ جبل صبيح / بلدة بيتا pic.twitter.com/Ao9cwbUtac
— حركة فتح (@fatehorg) June 21, 2021
Fatah’s involvement in the riots also becomes clear from an examination of the list of fatalities. For instance, Israeli forces on June 11 shot and killed Mohammad Hamayel during clashes outside Beita in which, the IDF said, hundreds of Palestinians hurled stones, burned tires and set off fireworks. Shortly after Hamayel’s death, the PLO’s Detainees Affairs Commission uploaded a martyr poster that identified him as being associated with Fatah. Moreover, photos taken after Hamayel’s burial show Fatah’s flag placed close to his graveside.
Similarly, Fatah banners were spotted at the funerals of Imad Ali Mohammad Dweikat and Shadi Salim. Additionally, the Hamas terror group claimed as a member at least one person killed in the Beita riots.
In another sign of high-level Fatah involvement, Mahmoud al-Aloul (‘Abu Jihad’), Mahmoud Abbas’ deputy, on June 12 headed an official delegation to Beita. Two weeks later, the senior official even participated in the night confusion activities. Footage distributed by Fatah shows al-Aloul marching with a torch and shining a laser towards Evyatar. He also visited wounded rioters in a Nablus hospital.
Mahmoud al-Aloul (‘Abu Jihad’), PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ deputy, also participated in the #Beita riots.@gantzbe @IsraeliPM @naftalibennett https://t.co/4wuTkWsOMr
— Akiva van Koningsveld (@koningsveld) August 17, 2021
In an even more worrying development, some Israeli Twitter users last month pointed out that the Palestinian Authority — supported by many Western countries — decided to reward the Beita terrorists with millions of shekels.
On June 24, PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh visited the West Bank town. “Our presence here is not only symbolic, but practical,” Shtayyeh said. Accordingly, on July 5, the PA cabinet allocated NIS 3,124,000 (approximately USD 950,000) “to support the steadfastness of the citizens.”
That same day, Mahmoud Abbas invited representatives from Beita — including the families of “martyrs” — to his presidential headquarters in Ramallah. During the meeting, a video of which was posted to an official PA Facebook page, Abbas reportedly called Beita “the icon of popular resistance in Palestine.”
While the official statement said the PA’s million-dollar grant would go towards the town’s “development needs,” this is all but certain: Ramallah is well-known for its practice of diverting funds to reward terrorism against the Jewish state. Notably, local reports have asserted that the activities of the “resistance” have cost “nearly a million dollars” to date.
Related Reading: WaPo, AP, Reuters Omit Critical Context About PA’s Pay-for-Slay, Turn Facts About Policy Into Israeli ‘Claims’
Fatah Official Praises Beita After Swastika Effigy
Perhaps emboldened by the largesse provided by the Palestinian Authority, the militants are going a step further. “The torch unit is improving its abilities to harass [Israel] in a new way currently at Jabal Sbeih [near Evyatar],” the rioters wrote in a Facebook post dated August 14.
Later, they burned the first of two swastikas on consecutive nights. “You [Israelis] are worse than Hitler and the Nazis,” the organizers subsequently wrote. “Yes, we want to burn you alive. That is all we are working for.”
Nonetheless, the next day Fatah spokesman Hussein Hamayel went on the Fatah-controlled Adweh TV channel and praised the rioters. “The residents of Beita have a long and unique history of struggling,” he said, adding: “Beita is the home of the martyrs, the home of steadfastness. The martyrs from Beita sent a message to the whole world and all the peoples that there can be no solution for the Palestinian cause until the Palestinian people gain all their rights.”
Two days later, the Fatah Revolutionary Council, the party’s legislative body, held a meeting in Beita to “support the popular resistance.” Hence, little is to be expected from the Palestinian Authority when it comes to condemning the antisemitic rioters. As a matter of fact, the Israel-Nazi comparison directly echoes the PA’s official messages and educational materials. In 2021 alone, Palestinian Media Watch recorded 16 separate instances of official Palestinian sources promoting this antisemitic false equivalency.
Related Video: Up In Flames: Abbas-backed Palestinians Equate Israel to Nazi Germany
Nations that support the Palestinian Authority should hold it accountable for backing the antisemitic terrorism being perpetrated by the residents of Beita. Yet, the European Union Delegation to the Palestinians has not said a word about the matter throughout the course of the riots.
On August 5, the delegation — consisting of diplomatic representatives from the EU, 11 of its member states, Norway and the UK — toured Beita. According to their press release, the visit took place in response to ostensible “settler violence” and the “worrying establishment of an illegal settlement outpost [Evyatar].”
Strikingly, the members of the European delegation have not said a word about the burning of the swastikas this week. As of Thursday, none of the countries represented had sent a demarche to the Palestinian Authority, or even issued a public statement denouncing the antisemitism espoused by the rioters in Beita.
As European Council President Charles Michel stated in January, Europeans have a special duty to pass on the memory of the Holocaust and combat antisemitism “with full force” wherever it rears its ugly head.
Therefore, HonestReporting is calling on European ambassadors to the PA to unequivocally condemn the actions of Beita’s residents and insist that Ramallah end its support for the riots.
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