Abbas’ advisor teaches Palestinians: “Ramadan is… not a month of laziness but rather … a month of Jihad, conquest, and victory”

There should be no misunderstanding. The current terror wave in which 4 terrorists have murdered 14 people in terror attacks in Israel – the latest of which took place in the heart of Tel Aviv on Thursday -  was initiated and is being fueled by the PA and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party. In order to ignite and perpetuate the terror wave the PA and Fatah are using all their usual methods: Implicit and direct calls for violence; demonization of Israel and Israelis; invoking the false claim that Israel/Israelis are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque; attacking Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid for walking in Jerusalem; and repeating other sundry libels.

As Palestinian Media Watch has already exposed, in the run up to the Muslim month of Ramadan, the PA intensified its false rhetoric that Israel was seeking to escalate violence and destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Those calls were then used as a means to create hatred and recruit the Palestinians to conduct terror attacks.

Speaking on the first day of Ramadan, PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash, made the PA expectations of the Palestinians perfectly clear: In the same way as Muslim Prophet Muhammad engaged in war during Ramadan, so too the Palestinians should engage in “Jihad.” Explaining how Muhammad embarked on the Battle of Badr and conquered Mecca during Ramadan, Al-Habbash clarified that Ramadan is “is not a month of laziness but rather … a month of Jihad, conquest, and victory.”

“How was this month [of Ramadan] in the life of Prophet [Muhammad]? … Did the Prophet spend Ramadan in calmness, serenity, laziness, and sleepiness? Far be it from him… The Prophet entered the great Battle of Badr (in 624 CE) during Ramadan... Martyrs fell from among the companions of the Prophet - 14 Martyrs … The companions did not say: “O Prophet of Allah, now is a time of fasting and it is hot” ... On the 17th of Ramadan he set out to Badr, and the great Battle of Badr took place… Also in the month of Ramadan, in the 8th year of the Hijra (i.e., 629-630 CE), the Prophet and the Muslims conquered Mecca... The Prophet did not say and did not think when he decided to set out to liberate Mecca and to conquer Mecca that “Now it’s Ramadan, people are fasting, let’s delay it to after Ramadan” … How can we build [our] lives and lay foundations for Islam if we are lazy, Heaven forbid? Ramadan is not a month of laziness but rather a month of activity, of effort, and of hard work, and as it also was in the life of the Prophet, a month of Jihad, conquest, and victory.”

[Official PA TV, Allah’s Messenger Muhammad, April 3, 2022]

The official PA daily was even more explicit in its incitement of violence. While claiming that the Palestinians aren’t interested in conflict because the world is preoccupied with the Ukraine-Russia war, a regular columnist, Bassem Barhoum, turned reality on its head claiming that Israel is intentionally trying to ”provoke the Palestinians” and carry out “uncontrolled retaliatory acts”:

“It is the interest of Israel, which in the eyes of the world has become a state of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, to go back to manufacturing the perception of the Palestinian ‘terrorist’ who harms civilians. It is marketing that it wants calm, but it is sending the settler herds to the Palestinian villages and to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to provoke the Palestinians and push them into an escalation and carrying out uncontrolled retaliatory acts that it will use as an excuse to carry out extensive aggression against the Palestinian people…”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 2, 2022]

In order to thwart Israel’s alleged plan, Barhoum explained that the Palestinians have chosen the path of “popular resistance” - a Palestinian euphemism for sporadic terror attacks - and that the Palestinians must ”strengthen this type of resistance” to “inflict a heavy cost on the occupation”:

“In addition, the Palestinian people has chosen popular resistance (i.e., term used by Palestinians, which also refers to the use of violence and terror) as the tool to confront the Israeli occupation, and it needs to strengthen this type of resistance and make sure that it will be in an ongoing dynamic, in a manner that will inflict a heavy cost on the occupation and a minimal cost on the Palestinian people.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 2, 2022]

Completing the diatribe, the PA daily left no room to interpretation regarding the expectation of the Palestinians:

“What we need is a joint and agreed upon plan and to leave the cycle of retaliatory acts – a plan that will balance between the continuation of the civilian’s daily life, and that simultaneously the popular resistance will be an ongoing daily act with an impact on the Israeli occupation.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 2, 2022]

Having laid the groundwork with implicit and direct calls for “Jihad” and violence, and to ensure that the Palestinians are sufficiently enraged in order to motivate them to participate in terror, the PA made repeated references to Palestinians killed by Israelis, allegedly without any justification and for no reason. Referring to terrorists killed while carrying out terror attacks the PA daily declared: 

“In less than a week, seven Martyrs for the sake of Palestine ascended to Heaven after being shot by the forces of the occupation, which shoots to kill and for no other reason!”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 3, 2022]

Among those “killed for no reason” were terrorists who carried out shooting attacks, murdering 7 people, others who attempted murder and members in the internationally designated terror organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) that were neutralized on their way to carry out another attack. 

Referring to the terrorists as “pure-hearted Martyrs” and referring to their acts as “popular resistance” the PA daily continued:

“We are bidding farewell to our pure-hearted Martyrs, while they are ascending to the Heavens. Yes, with a painful heart, but [also] with determination to stand firm, defy, and continue on the paths of popular resistance until defeating the occupation and removing it from the land of our state, whose capital is East Jerusalem…”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 3, 2022]

Distorting the call of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet for all Israelis who have gun licenses to carry their weapons during this new wave of terror attacks, as a means of self-defense against the homicidal Palestinian terrorists, the PA daily added:

‘Violence will not bear results’ – we will remain with this logical and objective conclusion, but will the Israeli occupation state support it? Will it do this, while currently it is working to arm the settlers in a way that will turn it into a state of militias, according to the decision of Israeli Prime Minister [Naftali Bennett], which he declared a few days ago? How will there be an end to the violence with a state like this, which sets rifles free in the streets so they will kill as many as they can?”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 3, 2022]

In his speech opening the weekly cabinet meeting, PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh warned of the imaginary attempts of “Jewish extremists to violate the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque.” In order to inflame tensions and ignoring the fact that the 3 terrorists neutralized by Israel - see note below about Saeb Abahreh, Khalil Tawalbeh, and Saif Hafzi Abu Libdeh - were members of PIJ on their way to carry out imminent attacks, Shtayyeh baselessly claimed:

“The Prime Minister said that Israel’s justification for the killing of Palestinians as “ticking bombs” warns of a very dangerous escalation, because “Israel considers every Palestinian who is on his land and defends his property as a ticking bomb that necessitates killing him, which is an extremely dangerous matter in light of allowing settlers to carry weapons and kill Palestinians just on the ground of suspicion.”

[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, April 4, 2022]

Abu Libdeh was so convinced that he was destined to die carrying out a terror attack, that he even left a farewell message declaring the he was sacrificing himself “on the path of liberating Muslim Palestine from the defilement of the attacking Jews”. Echoing the words of Al-Habbash, Abu Libdeh demand that people go on “the path of Jihad” and ended that “Jihad is victory or Martyrdom”:

“In the name of All Merciful Allah… I, the humble servant of Allah, the living Martyr, Saif Hafzi Abu Libdeh, testify that there is no God but Allah … I sacrifice myself easily for the sake of Allah, on the path of liberating Muslim Palestine from the defilement of the attacking Jews. I am a Jihad fighter… I declare that I am a Jihad fighter for the sake of Allah, in the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, and I fight under its flag, the flag of mighty Islam, and in order to fly the flag ‘There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s Messenger’ above Jerusalem and its surroundings. People of Tulkarem and my beloved Nour Shams [refugee] camp, my friends and dear ones everywhere – I demand of you to have fear of Allah and obey Him… to go on the path of hardships, the path of mighty Jihad… Jihad is victory or Martyrdom.”

[Al-Quds Net news agency, April 2, 2022]

Ignoring the context of Israel’s actions, and negating Israel’s right to defend itself against homicidal terrorists, the PA daily declared:

“The occupation goes too far on its bloody path and assassinates three young people from southern Jenin”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 3, 2022]

Similarly ignoring the fact that terrorist Nidal Ja’afreh - see note below - tried to murder a Jew on a bus by stabbing him with a screwdriver, PA TV claimed that Ja’afreh was “executed … in cold blood.” [Official PA TV, March 31, 2022]. An additional reference added:

Official PA TV reporter: “First, the only certain fact as of this moment is that this was a summary execution. Today a summary execution at the hands of a settler took place. The summary execution policy has been the law and ideology of the occupation government for a number of years.”

[Official PA TV, Reporters in the Field, March 31, 2022]

To enrage the Palestinians further, PA Presidential Office Advisor on Jerusalem Affairs Ahmed Al-Ruweidi took the “Israel is attacking Al-Aqsa” trope to an entirely new level, by warning against a “massacre” of the worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, to be carried out, allegedly, by Israel “and its settlers”:

“Yesterday [April 3, 2022, PA] Presidential Office Advisor on Jerusalem Affairs Ahmed Al-Ruweidi warned against a massacre by the occupation and its settlers against the worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, especially in light of the escalation and incitement by the settlers…”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 4, 2022]

Referring to the additional forces posted in Jerusalem to prevent Palestinian terror and rioting, Al-Ruweidi claimed that additional security forces coupled with “invasions of the Al Aqsa Mosque” – the PA terminology for Jews exercising their right to visit the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site – are proof that Israel is trying to “escalate the situation in Jerusalem.”  

“The occupation’s large military presence in Jerusalem yesterday, the confrontations that were recorded at the Damascus Gate area, and the invasions of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in large numbers prove that the occupation is striving to escalate the situation in Jerusalem.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 4, 2022]

Not missing an opportunity, the PA even used the visit of Israeli Foreign Minister and alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid to the Damascus Gate entrance to Jerusalem’s old city as an opportunity to inflame tensions.

The site of many Palestinian terror attacks, the Damascus Gate is in the heart of Jerusalem. Every Israeli, and certainly a minister in Israel’s cabinet, should be able to visit the site without hindrance.

Adopting the baseless threat that Lapid’s “storming” of the Damascus Gate could lead to an “explosion” not only in Israel “but in the region as a whole,” Presidential Spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said the visit was “irresponsible behavior”:

“The storming yesterday of Damascus Gate area in occupied East Jerusalem by Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid was irresponsible behavior, as well as army, police and settlers’ provocations, all of which could lead to an explosion not only in Palestine but in the region as a whole”

[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, April 4, 2022]