On December 19, CNN updated its Mahmoud Abbas Fast Facts piece. Compiled by the network’s research department, it contains 13 references to Israel, including the following:
Played an integral role in the forging of the Declaration of Principles, the historic Oslo Accords signed in 1993 by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel.”
“Was the primary force behind the Palestine National Council’s decision to work with Israeli peace groups.”
“Attends the funeral of Israeli statesman Shimon Peres and shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
“Abbas calls on the PLO to ‘revise all the agreements signed between the PLO and Israel because Israel has brought these agreements to a dead end,’ and accuses Israel of ending the Oslo agreement.”
CNN depicts Palestinian Authority President Abbas as having been actively engaged in peace talks with Israel that repeatedly fell apart through no fault of his own. The network, which claims to reach more people in the United States than any other news brand (175 million), fails to mention the violent rejectionism – typified by incessant incitment against Israel – that has characterized Abbas’ reign.
While the word ‘peace’ appears eight times in Mahmoud Abbas Fast Facts, ‘incitement,’ ‘violence,’ ‘terror,’ ‘martyr,’ and ‘militant’ don’t appear once.
HonestReporting has repeatedly shown this portrayal of Abbas as a political moderate who actively supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be little more than a media creation.
Read more: “Within hours of the West Bank drive-by shooting, the Nablus branch of Fatah — the ruling faction of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas — hailed the terrorists on its official Facebook page.”
Read more: “Netanyahu’s comments came after the Abbas-led PA that controls the West Bank declared its intention to form a unity government with Hamas, the US-designated terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip. Hamas is committed to the Jewish state’s destruction. Peace talks were meant to have been revived prior to the Abbas’ decision to partner with Hamas.”
Read more: “Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ ruling Fatah faction praised the development [jailbreak]. An official Twitter account posted a photo of Abbas and Zakaria Zubeidi, who in 2002 planned an Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades attack that killed six Israelis.”
Read more: “The Grand Mufti – praised by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a “hero” and a “pioneer” – gained most of his notoriety as a Nazi collaborator…Some eight decades later, Abbas’ ruling Fatah faction posted to its official Facebook page the cover of a Nazi children’s book from 1936.”
Read more: “Over the weekend, Israel came under fire as dozens of rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip into the Jewish state. The “armed wing” of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction, which essentially governs the West Bank by fiat, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claimed responsibility for some of the attacks, each one constituting a war crime.”
Read more: “The Palestinian Authority-controlled Yasser Arafat Foundation during a ceremony at the Ramallah Cultural Palace presented its annual prize to the West Bank village of Beita…whose “model” involves violent riots, ecoterrorism, setting off powerful explosive devices and burning swastikas.”
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