Fatah claims Israel won`t hesitate to kill Abbas
Fatah claims Israel won't hesitate to kill Abbas -
"After all, they already killed Yasser Arafat before him"
- Fatah: US President Trump and UN Ambassador Haley have begun an "organized and planned attack against Abbas," similar to "attack against Arafat... that preceded his assassination by Israeli poison"
By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Two official Fatah sources have claimed that Israel is prepared to kill Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. Along with the accusation that Israel would kill Abbas if they had the opportunity, Fatah continues to repeat the libel that Israel assassinated Arafat with poison.
Fatah posted on Facebook that Israel wouldn't "hesitate" to kill Abbas, "After all they already killed Arafat before him":
Posted text: "The attack against [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas has many fronts, and they are all paving the way to one goal: The attempt to steal the popular support from him in preparation for his besiegement, and if they can also kill him, they will not hesitate to do so! After all, they already killed [former PA President] Yasser Arafat before him...
Khalil Nazzal
Fatah Movement Secretary in Warsaw"
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Jan. 26, 2018]
Fatah official, Muwaffaq Matar, wrote in an op-ed in the official PA daily that US President Trump and US Ambassador to the UN Haley have launched "an organized and planned attack" against Abbas:
"We must not forget a most grave matter, which is that the words of Haley and Trump will be a sort of beginning of an organized and planned attack against President Mahmoud Abbas, which reminds us of the attack against President Martyr (Shahid) Yasser Arafat, may his memory be blessed, that preceded his assassination by Israeli poison."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 27, 2018]
Without specifying whether he meant the US or Israel, member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council Muwaffaq Matar added: "They are liable to harm President Mahmoud Abbas, as they did President Yasser Arafat."Palestinian Media Watch has documented many statements by PA and Fatah officials repeating the libel that Israel poisoned and murdered Arafat. Some of these claims have asserted that the US approved the poisoning and murder of Arafat.
Following PLO and PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's death in November 2004, the PA created the libel that Israel murdered Arafat , and PA and Fatah leaders have been spreading it ever since, as PMW has documented. Swiss, Russian, and French medical teams have studied these claims. In 2012, samples were taken from Arafat's remains to be tested for poisoning, and Swiss and Russian teams afterwards published the results of their tests: The Swiss team concluded that the tests were "coherent with a hypothesis of poisoning" - but a member of the team also stated that "our study did not permit us to demonstrate categorically the hypothesis of poisoning by polonium." The Russian report concluded that "there was insufficient evidence to support the theory that Yasser Arafat died in 2004 by polonium poisoning." [Reuters, Nov. 8, 2013] In March 2015, three French judges ruled that "it has not been demonstrated that Mr. Yasser Arafat was murdered by polonium-210 poisoning." The French prosecutor stated that there was "not sufficient evidence of an intervention by a third party who could have attempted to take his life." [France 24, Sept. 2, 2015] The French prosecutor also explained that the polonium and lead found in Arafat's grave were "of an environmental nature." [Jerusalem Post, March 17, 2015].
Despite these results, the PA continues to blame Israel for Arafat's death without any proof or backing for this claim.
The following are longer excerpts of the reports above:
Excerpt of an op-ed by Muwaffaq Matar, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council and regular columnist for the official PA daily
Headline: "The day that Mahmoud Abbas overcame Trump's arrogance"
"[US President Donald] Trump's representative at the [UN] Security Council [US Ambassador to the UN] Nikki Haley said in these words: 'Palestinian [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas insulted US President Donald Trump when he opposed Washington's role in the peace process (sic., Haley said Abbas insulted Trump in a speech in which he said: "May your house be destroyed!").'...
We must not forget a most grave matter, which is that the words of Haley and Trump will be a sort of beginning of an organized and planned attack against President Mahmoud Abbas, which reminds us of the attack against President Martyr (Shahid) Yasser Arafat, may his memory be blessed, that preceded his assassination by Israeli poison...
They are liable to harm President Mahmoud Abbas, as they did President Yasser Arafat, but who told them that a Palestinian leader who is as great as the homeland is afraid to die for the freedom of the people and the liberation of the land? They are indeed arrogant."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 27, 2018]