PA: Israel’s “attack” on Gaza is part of greater “satanic plan” against entire Arab world
Abbas’ advisor:
- Israel and US are carrying out a “satanical plan” that won’t stop with Gaza and Hamas
- Israel wants to take over Arab world: “If Palestine falls, next in line will be Arab and Muslim capitals”
- Israel is “the American arm in the region… preventing Arab world from progress”
- US support for Israel against Hamas is “to protect the project of the Americans, Europeans, and old and new colonialism”
Fatah officials:
- “The Zionist movement has never hesitated making a pact, even with Satan… to eliminate the Palestinian people”
- Israel’s response to Hamas’ terror war is “foreign colonialism’s plan” to “deport Palestinians” to neighboring states
Official PA daily columnist:
- US and Britain created Israel “to resolve the Jewish problem,” “to ensure their interests,” and to “harm” the Arabs
After initially celebrating Hamas’ massacre on Israel, the Palestinian Authority/Fatah changed its tune when Israel began destroying Hamas’ terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. Now the PA and Fatah daily accuse Israel of intentionally killing civilians in Gaza. But the PA has taken its libels even a step further, accusing Israel - and America - of implementing a greater “satanical plan” via Israel’s counter-terror response to Hamas’ terror war in order to conquer the entire Arab world. PA Chairman Abbas’ advisor warned that Israel “won’t stop at Gaza”:
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “The [Israeli-American] satanical plan will not stop with the Gaza Strip and will not be summed up by the Gaza Strip or just the Hamas Movement. The goal is to eliminate the Palestinian cause at the expense of Egypt, at the expense of Jordan, and at the expense of the Palestinians in order to realize the American and Israeli interests.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 28, 2023]
Al-Habbash: “From the first days of the [Israeli] aggression they [Israel] began to speak about Gaza Strip residents leaving Palestine to the Sinai Peninsula, and if that would succeed, Heaven forbid, they would also do this in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and thus they would realize their old-new statement: ‘A land without a people for a people without a land.’ That’s the entire satanic Israeli plan that is supported by the US.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Nov. 4, 2023]
Likewise, Al-Habbash claimed that the entire Islamic world is in danger of Israeli takeover: “If Palestine falls, the next in line will be Arab and Muslim capitals”:
Al-Habbash: “We are not only defending the land of Palestine or the Palestinian people. We are also defending the honor of the [Arab] nation, because if Palestine falls, the next in line will be Arab and Muslim capitals.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 28, 2023]
Israel’s response to the terror war that Hamas launched against it on Oct. 7, and America’s support for Israel, is interpreted by the PA as proof of an American plan to “prevent the Arab world from progressing,” which it implements using Israel as “its arm in the region”:
Al-Habbash: “Israel, the occupation state, represents the American grip on the region, the American arm in the region, the colonialist armthrough which the US and old and new colonialism are succeeding in keeping the Arab region in a state of tension under heavy pressures that prevent it from progressing and prevent it from fulfilling its role, whether in building itself up or on the international level.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 22, 2023]
Similarly, a Fatah official claimed Israel’s response to Hamas’ terror war is “foreign colonialism’s plan” to deport Palestinians to neighboring states:
Fatah Revolutionary Council member Kifah Harb: “This occupation and this foreign colonialism with all its elements – the US and the European states – in addition to this occupation in practice, is moving towards deportation of the Palestinian people and transporting [them] to the neighboring states.”
Posted text: “[Fatah Revolutionary Council member Kifah] Harb to [Fatah-run] Awdah TV: The aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip is the execution of a contingency plan prepared in advance.”
[Fatah-run Awdah TV, Facebook page, Oct. 21, 2023]
Three weeks into the war, another Fatah official claimed that “the Zionist movement has never hesitated making a pact, even with Satan… to eliminate the Palestinian people” and expel all Palestinians:
Fatah official and An-Najah National University political science lecturer Raed Debiy: “The Zionist movement has never hesitated makinga pact, even with Satan, to achieve its racist goals and eliminate the Palestinian people. The Zionist movement made a pact with the Nazis in Germany (i.e., the 1933-1939 Ha’avara Agreement). The Zionist movement killed Jews during the 1930s and 1940s (sic.) The Zionist movement has made a pact with all parties to fulfill its ultimate goal of expelling our Palestinian people.”
[Official PA TV, Oct. 25, 2023]
Likewise, Fatah insisted that “whoever is not Jewish” is a target for “the Zionists,” whose goal is “to destroy the Arabs and Islam”:
Posted text: “The main interest of the Zionists is not the Gaza Strip (refers to Hamas’ terror war on Israel; see note below -Ed.), not the West Bank, and not [even] all the Palestinians.
The Zionists’ interests are all the Arabs! Whoever is not Jewish is the Zionist’s target!
The Arabs are still sleeping, the topic doesn’t interest them, even though their turn is coming…
The Zionists are based on racism against the Arabs and Islam, and their goal is to destroy them.
So the turn will come for everyone, and whoever abandoned [us] will be sorry, because the people of Gaza were destroyed and taken to Paradise.
But you? Our Lord knows where you are going.”
[Fatah Movement – Bethlehem Branch, Telegram channel, Oct. 23, 2023]
That Israel is America and Europe’s “pawn” in the Middle East, created here as a “colonial implant” to prevent the Arab world from progressing, and to steal its natural resources, is a fundamental PA libel expressed numerous times by PA and Fatah officials and exposed by Palestinian Media Watch.
Again stressing the libel of the US and Britain’s “colonial” aspirations, regular official PA daily columnist Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul repeated antisemitic rhetoric, stating that the US and Britain created Israel “to resolve the Jewish problem,” “to ensure their interests,” and to “harm” the Arabs:
Official PA daily columnist Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul: “Who established Israel? The capitalist Western states – the US and Britain and the rest of the European group – established it… They said: ‘We must find a foreign people to this [Middle East] region, because the possibilities of its revival, its unity, and its rise threaten the interests of the West.’ Therefore, they established this illegitimate state to resolve the Jewish problem that gave them no rest, and to give them additional monopoly profits in order to ensure their interests in this region and to harm the peoples of the Arab world and tear them to pieces.”
[Official PA TV, Oct. 23, 2023]
Abbas’ advisor Al-Habbash has repeated several times that US support for Israel against Hamas is “to protect the project of the Americans, Europeans, and old and new colonialism”:
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “The first goal [of the American support] is moral support for Israel, because there is internal shock inside Israel… This is an attempt to give moral support and strengthen the Israelis in order to protect the American project. Israel is nothing but a project of the Americans, Europeans, and old and new colonialism.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Nov. 4, 2023]
Fatah in Lebanon also stressed the claim that Israel is America’s pawn with this cartoon showing US President Joe Biden rocking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his arms as a baby, while feeding him from a large baby bottle filled with “the blood of Gaza.”:
Text on cartoon: “The blood of Palestine’s children”
[Falestinona, website of Fatah’s Information and Culture Commission in Lebanon, Oct. 25, 2023]
The following are notes to the above statements:
Mahmoud Al-Habbash also serves as Supreme Shari’ah Judge and Chairman of the Supreme Council for Shari'ah Justice.
Posted text with Al-Habbash’s statement about a “satanical plan”: "[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud] Al-Habbash to [Egyptian TV] channel Al-Nile: The Arabs must turn to the US with the language of interests in order to force it to stop the occupation’s aggression against our people (refers to Israel’s response to Hamas’ terror war on Israel; see note below -Ed.).”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 28, 2023]
The 1933-1939 Ha’avara Agreement was an agreement between the Zionist movement and the Nazis to ease the process for Jews escaping Germany to the land of Israel.
Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul is also a former advisor with the rank of minister to former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on national affairs and a former PLO Central Council member.
"The Campbell-Bannerman plan" - PA leaders have often promoted a conspiracy theory denying Israel's legitimacy, claiming that Israel's establishment was the result of a British-led colonialist plot termed "the Campbell-Bannerman plan," which was recorded in a similarly named document. This alleged plan's goal was to create a "pawn" in the form of Israel that would keep the Arab peoples divided and backwards, in order to ensure European domination over the Middle East. The conspiracy theory apparently refers to the 1907 Imperial Conference led by former British Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the minutes of which disprove the PA's claims of a conspiracy to undermine the Middle East. In 2017 the conspiracy theory was investigated by Prof Dr. Mohsen Mohammad Saleh, head of the Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations, a Lebanese pro-Palestinian research institute. Saleh reported that he traveled to Britain to investigate the alleged document but "found no trace or source of it!" [Website of Al-Zaytouna, Political Analysis: Is the “Campbell-Bannerman Document”: Real or Fake?, Sept. 29, 2017] Saleh noted that former head of the PLO Research Center Dr. Anis Sayegh learned an Egyptian named Antoun Canaan was the first to write about the alleged document, and Sayegh learned in talking with Canaan that his source was an unidentified Indian man: "When [Canaan] travelled from Palestine to London to study law in the mid-1940s, he met in the plane an Indian man sitting next him. The man told him he remembers reading about a colonial conference held in London attended by delegates from several colonial powers to discuss the partition of the Arab nations, prevent their reunification, and the establishment of a Jewish state, but the Indian man did not give Canaan any documented academic material regarding the document." Nevertheless, PA leaders continue to cite the conspiracy theory in their attacks against Israel.
Hamas war on Israel October 2023 - At least 1,200 Israelis, including over 1,000 civilians, were murdered and over 4,800 wounded, in addition to approximately 244 who were abducted into the Gaza Strip (including 110 later released or liberated and at least 26 later killed), in a Hamas terror war that began when approximately 3,000 Hamas terrorists broke through Israel's security fence at the Gaza Strip border and launched a surprise attack, taking control of several Israeli towns and attacking a music festival on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, which fell on the Sabbath, Oct. 7, 2023. During the massacre the terrorists tortured, raped, shot, beheaded, and burned their victims alive, murdering entire families and leaving at least 21 children without parents. Hamas terrorists also fired at least 5,000 rockets at Israeli population centers. In response, Israel launched Operation Iron Swords to counter the Hamas terror threat. Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon joined Hamas' terror war starting from the following day, attacking Israel from the north. Occasional rocket launches and shootings continued from Lebanon throughout the war. A ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal began on Nov. 24, 2023, in which Israel agreed to release 150 terrorist prisoners, pause drone surveillance in the Gaza Strip, and allow movement between the northern and southern Gaza Strip, in return for 50 Israeli female and child hostages held by Hamas. The deal was subsequently extended with additional releases, until Hamas violated the agreement and resumed attacking on Dec. 1, 2023.