During an April 18 video address to the national conference of the J Street lobbying group, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urged the Biden Administration to remove the Palestinian Liberation Organization from the US list of terrorist organizations. This, as a precondition for “develop[ing] and strengthen[ing]” ties with Washington that Ramallah severed in 2017.
Thus far, major news organizations have not raised any questions about Abbas’ assertion that the 1987 Anti-Terrorism Act is no longer relevant because the PA and Israel recognized each other’s legitimacy as part of the Oslo Accords.
The US law defines the PLO as: (1) a terrorist organization; (2) a threat to the interests of the United States, its allies, and to international law; and (3) an entity that should not benefit from operating in the United States. In order for the PLO to stop being classified as such, President Joe Biden would need to provide certification to Congress that the organization no longer practices or supports terrorist actions.
In the interim, media continue to paint Abbas as a man of peace, thereby turning a blind eye to his long history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, his consistent rejection of coexistence and his PA’s ongoing backing of terrorism against Israelis.
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Abbas’ ‘Sole Path to Achieving Peace’
During his J Street address, Abbas claimed:
We are ready to resume peace negotiations with our Israeli counterpart on the basis of international legitimacy resolution, the signed agreements, and under the auspices of the international Quartet…. We believe that dialogue and negotiations are the sole path to achieving peace.”
Yet, the reality on the ground effectively reduces the probability of this potentiality to almost zero, as the PA continues to incentivize the murder of Jews with its “Pay-for-Slay” policy, which entails paying “salaries” to Palestinians who perpetrate violent attacks — with more money being doled out to terrorists who shed the most blood.
Though every public record of the law requiring that seven percent of the PA’s budget be allocated toward this “Martyrs Fund” was removed in 2018, former Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avi Dichter, who is fluent in Arabic, has confirmed its existence.
Indeed, it was this PA-mandated rule that led to the passage in 2018 of the Taylor Force Act, which suspended American aid to Ramallah so long as it continued to reward terrorism. Congress passed the law following the murder of Taylor Force, a 28-year-old US Army veteran who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian in Tel Aviv.
Related Reading: Palestinian Terror Payments: Pay For Slay
Turning ‘Palestine’ Into One of the Most Antisemitic Places on Earth
Moreover, Abbas used the opportunity to address some 4,000 people who reportedly registered for J Street’s virtual event to smear Israel, blaming the Jewish state for the failure to implement a two-state solution.
That this is a patently false assertion — especially when considering that Abbas in 2008 rejected a comprehensive peace offer by then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert — is underscored by the PA chief’s rampant antisemitism. Abbas has accused Israeli rabbis of planning to poison Palestinian water wells, and claimed that the Jewish people have fabricated its ancient connection to the Land of Israel.
In 2018, Abbas argued that the Holocaust was not the end-result of genocidal antisemitism but, rather, a response to the financial activities of European Jewry.
It is not surprising, then, that the Anti-Defamation League found that Palestinians in the West Bank are, on the whole, one the most antisemitic people in the world, with more than 90 percent of them harboring racist attitudes towards Jews.
Mended Its Ways? Inconvenient Truths About the PLO
The media’s depiction of Abbas as a relative moderate dovetails with its approach to the Palestine Liberation Organization, which he chairs.
In fact, the PLO is the leading political body in the PA — the same entity to which Israel is regularly slammed for not making sufficient concessions — even though it is comprised of terror groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Nonetheless, the PLO is portrayed favorably by news outlets and is recognized by the United Nations, along with many countries, as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.
This is despite Ramallah having never fulfilled its obligations to fully renounce terrorism and resolve all outstanding issues with Israel via bilateral negotiations.
Specifically, the Palestinian National Charter continues to call for Israel’s elimination by military means. Though the PLO has repeatedly vowed to amend the document, evidence of Palestinian rejectionism is found in Article 33: “This Charter shall not be amended save by [vote of] a majority of two-thirds of the total membership of the National Congress of the Palestine Liberation Organization [taken] at a special session convened for that purpose.”
This has not occurred.
Nor has the Palestinian leadership halted indoctrinating children with the belief that they will one day “return” to Israel. It is common for maps in Palestinian textbooks to show all of Israel as “Palestine.”
Related Reading: Media Silent on Abbas Beginning 17th Year of Four-Year Term
Earlier this month, the Biden Administration announced that it was formally restoring hundreds of millions of dollars in economic aid to the Palestinians. Media have failed to report that this prospective resumption of financial assistance could very well violate several US anti-terrorism laws.
In this vein, HonestReporting has confirmed that news outlets have for the most part ignored Abbas’ call for the PLO be removed from Washington’s list of terrorist organizations, despite the fact that such a move would have significant ramifications. As of publication of this article, not a single story on the matter was produced by CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, MSN, MSNBC, NBC or ABC.
Outside of Israeli and Jewish-focused news outlets, it is as if Abbas’ controversial address to J Street never took place.
The bitter irony is that by not holding Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO and the PA to account, it is the Palestinian people who stand to lose the most. In this respect, a report has surfaced that Washington would not object if the PA decided to postpone the legislative elections set for next month — the first such vote since 2006.
Instead of fulfilling their responsibility to tell the whole story, the mainstream media’s collective silence is liable to prevent Palestinians from finally having their voices heard.
