Op-ed: Israel "strives to set our region on fire in religious wars, in which blood will be mercilessly spilled”; attacks PIJ for “fake victories”
Excerpt of an op-ed by Muwaffaq Matar, Fatah Revolutionary Council member and regular columnist for the official PA daily
Headline: “Shame on Israel”
“Two evenings ago (Friday) [Nov. 15, 2019], the world again took its position that is consistent with the principles, rights, laws, and values of morality… when the UN General Assembly decided to renew UNRWA’s (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) mandate.
One-hundred and seventy states voted in favor of the resolution, which wasopposed only by a colonialist power (i.e., the US)… and ‘Israel’ – the racist, settler, and defective state that strives to set our region on fire in religious wars, in which blood will be mercilessly spilled…
The UN resolution to extend UNRWA’s mandate… was a real and tangible political and legal victory for Palestine.This victory refutes the propaganda of those who claim fake victories in the battlefield, whose heavy price is paid by our people with the lives and blood of its children, as in the wars that advance interests of states in the region at the expense of the Palestinian national interests. The latest example of this is what happened in Gaza at the end of last week(refers to an Islamic Jihad rocket barrage against Israel; see note below –Ed.)…
We must always remember that the goal of the Palestinian revolution, which was launched 17 years after the Nakba (i.e., “the catastrophe,” the Palestinian term for the establishment of the State of Israel), was only the liberation of the home, land, and occupied homeland, and the return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland. The renewal of UNRWA’s mandate is nothing but recognition of the refugees’ right to return to their homeland.”
Islamic Jihad rockets, November 2019: In response to Israel’s assassination of senior commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror organization in Gaza Baha Abu Al-Ata in a targeted rocket strike on Nov. 12, 2019, PIJ fired over 450 rockets at Israel over a period of 48 hours until a ceasefire was reached on Nov. 14, 2019, which Islamic Jihad promptly breached by firing 5 more rockets.