While Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have a long and bloody history of conflict, the recent murderous attack by Hamas seems to have brought the two organizations together.
On Sunday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas seemed to criticize Hamas when he released a statement on Sunday in WAFA News criticizing Hamas, saying. “that Hamas’ policies and actions do not represent the Palestinian people, and the policies, programs and decisions of the (Palestine Liberation Organization) represent the Palestinian people as their sole legitimate representative.”
Several hours later, the phrase was adjusted to read: “The president also stressed that the policies, programs, and decisions of the PLO represent the Palestinian people as their sole legitimate representative, and not the policies of any other organization.”
While this seems to indicate that the PA is not complicit in the Hamas attack on Israel, a recent report by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a nongovernmental organization and media watchdog group, revealed that the Palestinian Authority will pay at least 11,100,000 shekels ($2,789,430) this month as a reward to any Hamas terrorist, alive or dead, for participating in last week’s murders and atrocities against Israeli civilians.
Under Palestinian Authority law, every terrorist who is killed attacking Israel is defined as a “Martyr” whose family is immediately rewarded by the PA with a 6,000 shekels ($1,511) grant and a 1,400 ($353) per month allowance for life. In total, the PA will pay at least 11,170,000 shekels ($2,807,021) in payments under the PA’s “Pay-for-Slay” program to the Hamas terrorists this month.
This alliance comes despite a long history of conflict and power-struggles between the two main Palestinian political parties. Hamas, founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, is considered more extremist as it states in its charter that armed resistance to Israel is the only option. The charter also states its intention to murder every Jew anywhere in the world. After the first and only election in Gaza after the Israeli government forcibly dismantled Gush Katif in 2005, Hamas waged an armed takeover of Gaza, eliminating that Palestinian Authority. Since then, it has fought several wars with Israel. Mahmoud Abbas was elected as president of the PA for a four-year term in 2005 but the PA has not held elections for fear of a Hamas victory.
The Regavim Movement publicized a catalog of official Palestinian Authority expressions of support for Hamas, including calls for donations, encouragement for Hamas militants and calls for active participation in confrontations with Israeli civilians and troops.
Additional proof of Palestinian support for Hamas atrocities, drawn from Palestinian social media, includes footage of Fatah militants participating in the battles in Israel’s Gaza border communities and “selfies” of Fatah militants showing off spoils of war, ransacking and looting (for some examples, see https://t.me/palest54/4238 and https://t.me/palest54/4236 ), and an official PA spokesperson’s statement, aired on Israel’s Channel 11: “We do not condemn any side, and if it is necessary that we condemn anyone, that would be the only democratic state in the Middle East.”
Regavim also shared a Palestinian Authority Religious Endowments Office document (attached) calling on imams to use their Friday sermons to call for all forms of support for Hamas’s activities in Gaza.
As visual documentation of the horrors of the massacre carried out at the Nova Festival, in the Jewish communities of the ‘Gaza Envelope’ and along southern Israeli highways began to circulate on digital and world media outlets, politicians and media commentators in Israel and around the world began to fully internalize and express the equation Hamas is ISIS, in an attempt to expose the inhuman cruelty perpetrated by Hamas and to make it clear that the murderous terror attack of 7 October is not merely an expression of a localized conflict or of the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process,” but an illustration of the threat of radical Islam that threatens the entire world.
“We must not enable the ‘Hamas are the bad guys and the PA are the good guys’ narrative,” says Meir Deutsch, Director General of Regavim. “The Palestinian Authority’s repeated declarations of unwavering support for Hamas demands that we wake up, before the Arabs of Judea and Samaria give repeat performances of the Simchat Torah Massacre all over Israel.”
Deutsch added: “For years, official policy has held that peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria and with Hamas in Gaza are attainable through economic considerations, work permits for Gazan laborers, and financial support of the PA and Hamas. This policy has failed miserably, and we have paid for this folly in blood. The Palestinians have exploited this policy in order to build a terrorist state and to improve and expand their terror capabilities. This is precisely what happened in Gaza. We can no longer rely on these failed concepts that have formed the core of Israel’s policy. Economic incentives feed the beast of terrorism, and Israel’s territorial concessions and political incentives have proven to be nothing less than suicidal.”
