Senior Fatah official: "Palestine" stretches from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea and is "waqf" - an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law
Fatah: All of Israel is forever “Palestine”
– Jaffa, Acre, Haifa, Nazareth, Ramle, Beit Shean, The Negev Desert,
Tiberias, Safed, Jezreel Valley, and Umm Al-Fahm
Abbas’ Fatah is not only saying adamantly “no” to US President Trump’s peace deal, they also insist that all of the State of Israel is “Palestine.” Senior Fatah official Tawfiq Tirawi made this clear in a recent speech when he defined “Palestine” as stretching from “the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.” Tirawi defined “Palestine” as “waqf,” which is an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law, and therefore it is forbidden to accept non-Muslim rule over it. He further threatened that any Palestinian leader or official who would agree to a “Palestine” covering only the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and not including all of Israel would be in danger and “not be able to walk one meter in the streets of our Palestinian cities among our people”:
Fatah Commissioner and Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi: “Who said that we are for a state [on the borders of] 1967? Who said this? In Fatah, this does not exist in our constitution and our charter! They [Israel] want Beit El and Ma’ale Adumim (i.e., Israeli towns in the West Bank) to be Israeli, and we say that Nazareth, Haifa, and Acre (i.e., Israeli cities) are Palestinian, and they will remain Palestinian! Our Palestinian land is from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea. I dare any Palestinian, any senior Palestinian official, or any Palestinian leader to reduce the Palestinian map to the West Bank and Gaza! He would not be able to walk one meter in the streets of our Palestinian cities among our people! … Arab brothers… Be with the Palestinian people, the people that lives on land that is all holy and that is all waqf land (i.e., land that is an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law.)”
[Facebook page of Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi, Feb. 2, 2020]
Abbas’ Fatah stressed this uncompromising ideology further, stating that the Palestinian Authority isn’t “the end of the journey,” thereby implying that Fatah will not be content with a “Palestine” of the size of the PA. The post further urged violence by referring to Abbas’ call for “popular resistance” – a term PMW has shown to be referring to everything from peaceful protest to terror:
Posted text: “And woe to anyone who thinks that the '[Palestinian] National Authority' station is the end of the journey! Anyone who has a doubt about the absolute necessity of the continuation of the path need do nothing but examine Fatah's goals, which were emphasized in two conferences that the [Fatah] Movement held in the homeland… Whoever has had despair creep into his heart, please listen to [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas when he calls to escalate the popular resistance, or study the pictures of the Martyrs, and foremost among them first self-sacrificing fighter (Fida'i) [former PLO and PA leader] Yasser Arafat, and his brothers and comrades on the path,the founding self-sacrificing fighters.Then he will understand how Fatah executes its role…and how it understands its obligation to maintain the national project, withthe commitment it swore when it fired the first bullet is before its eyes at all times, and it has called on the people to join a long path – which is sometimes called 'the long-term people's war' and sometimes 'popular resistance' or standing up to 'the deal of the century’.”
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Jan. 1, 2020]
In addition, Fatah posted photos from “Palestine,” which included several places in Israel. Text explained that the photos were from “Palestine":
"Palestine will remain as long as a child rebels and is free to shout 'I am a Palestinian!'"
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Feb. 3, 2020]
|
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| "Jaffa" | "Acre" |
"Haifa" |
"Nazareth" |
"Ramle" |
"Beit Shean" |
|
|
| "The Negev Desert" | "Tiberias" |
"Safed" |
"Jezreel Valley" |
"Umm Al-Fahm"
Fatah leaders say to the international audience that they want a “Palestine” on the 1967 lines, but to Palestinians they stress that they will never accept Israel in any borders.Palestinian Media Watchhas exposed PA and Fatah leaders repeating the sloganthat “Palestine reaches from the River to the Sea”:
“Fatah’s Qalqilya branch, Murad Shtewi emphasized that the Palestinian people will not relinquish a grain of soil from the land of historical Palestine from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, despite the American administration’s attempts to allow the occupation state to expand the settlement and legitimize it, and he demanded that our people carry out a popular revolution against the occupation everywhere.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 30, 2019]
In response to US President Trump’s revelation of his peace plan, the PA and Fatah have stressed that “Palestine” includes all of Israel. Numerous times PMW has documented that this is one of the corner stones of what thePA teaches children. A recent example of children being taught not to except Israel's existence in any borders is this video posted by Fatah, which shows Palestinian schoolchildren marching in place and waving Palestinian flags while standing in a formation in the shape of the PA mapof “Palestine” that presents all of Israel as “Palestine” together with the PA areas:
Posted text: “The Al-Thughra Coed Elementary School
The map of #Palestine”
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Feb. 6, 2020]
This Fatah cartoon shows PA and Fatah Chairman Abbas standing in front of the PA map covered in the Palestinian flag as rocks being shot at him by a catapult with an Israeli flag on it shatter harmlessly on his chest. On the rocks are written the words "the deal of" and "the century,” Abbas is saying: "You will not implement it." The PA map is raising two arms, making the “V” for victory with its fingers.
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Feb. 2, 2020]
Fatah's Information and Culture Commission also stressed that Palestinians reject Trump’s plan and will accept nothing less than “all of Palestine” – which includes all of Israel - posting this cartoon:
Text: “Against the deal of the century”
[Website of Fatah's Information and Culture Commission, Feb. 2, 2020]
The cartoon shows a drawing of the PA map of “Palestine” (left side) that presents all of Israel and the PA areas as “Palestine” in the colors of the Palestinian flag, and the map of Jordan in the colors of the Jordanian flag (right side).
PMW reported that Fatah official Tirawi in the same speech instructed PA Security Forces “not to pursue” Palestinian terrorists but instead go after “collaborators” with Israel and “real estate agents” who facilitate the selling of land to Jews.
The following is a longer excerpt of one of Fatah’s posts cited above:
Posted text: "The daily message: Fatah, revolution until victory
The Zionist project was not at its beginning when a group of brave self-sacrificing fighters (Fedayeen) decided to establish the Fatah Movement and declare armed struggle at the beginning of January 1965 (refers to Fatah’s attempted bombing of Israel’s National Water Carrier; see note below –Ed.), but this project was at the most dangerous stage vis-à-vis the Palestinian existence. It is true that part of Palestine's land had not yet fallen into the hands of the Israeli occupation then, but the reality surrounding Palestine did not bode well: The Palestinian people, that had been hidden since the Nakba (i.e., “the catastrophe,” the Palestinian term for the establishment of the State of Israel) – no one saw it as more than scattered groups of refugees, which the international community made efforts to atone for its crime towards them through the distribution of sacks of flour…
Simultaneously, the situation in the Arab world that was busy with its internal struggles warned against the loss of what remained of Palestine, while not noticing the growing danger that the Zionist state constituted for the entire nation.The Israeli participation in the tripartite aggression against Egypt in 1956 (i.e., the Sinai Campaign to end terror incursions into Israel and the Egyptian blockade of Eilat) was a glaring example of this [danger] and of the role the foreign entity was to play as the tool of the Western colonialism any time it wanted to play with the Arab national security.
The founding self-sacrificing fighters understood this, and therefore they did not promise the Palestinian people a quick and easy victory, but rather called on it to be a partner on a long path as part of the people’s long-term war; and they included all the details of the national liberation project in one clear slogan, which represents the revolution plan: 'Revolution until victory.'
Fear and desperation had not penetrated the self-sacrificing fighters' hearts when the nation experienced the defeat of June 5, 1967, and all of Palestine came under Israeli occupation. However, the Fatah Movement hurried to redefine its priorities… and instead of cursing the Arab armies, they began to gather the weapons and equipment that these armies left behind, and began to organize and train the resistance cells against the occupier, and also established bases on the homeland’s borders. And it is not chance that Fatah… and with it the heroes of the Jordanian Arab army, succeeded in defeating the Israeli army when the self-sacrificing fighters decided to inscribe their names on the rocks of history, and chose the town of Al-Karameh (refers to the Al-Karameh battle, a military victory for Israel that Arafat nonetheless declared a Fatah victory; see note below –Ed.) as the place from which the new Palestinian counting [of the years] would begin…
Fatah's experience led it to [follow] the logic of not retreating from the enemy. Thus Fatah decided to stand firm at Al-Karameh and in Beirut… and thus it led our people's intifadas. This is experience that proves the revolutionary ability to defeat the impossible, to move from one minefield to another, and from one diaspora to another, until [Fatah] arrived at the homeland with its people and institutions. And woe to anyone who thinks that the '[Palestinian] National Authority' stop is the end of the journey! Anyone who has a doubt about the absolute necessity of the continuation of the path need do nothing but examine Fatah's goals, which were emphasized in two conferences that the [Fatah] Movement held in the homeland… Whoever has had despair creep into his heart, please listen to [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas when he calls to escalate the popular resistance, or study the pictures of the Martyrs, and foremost among them first self-sacrificing fighter (Fida'i) [former PLO Chairman and PA President] Yasser Arafat, and his brothers and comrades on the path, the founding self-sacrificing fighters. Then he will understand how Fatah executes its role… and how it understands its obligation to maintain the national project, with the commitment it swore when it fired the first bullet is before its eyes at all times, and it has called on the people to join a long path – which is sometimes called 'the long-term people's war' and sometimes 'popular resistance' or standing up to 'the deal of the century’ (i.e., US President Donald Trump's as yet unpublished Middle East peace plan)…
Fatah understands well the rules of the struggle with the enemies, and knows how to manage it. It is not sunken in an illusion, but rather understands that our people’s enemies have enough factors of power to prolong the life of the occupation, and to make our path to freedom difficult. However, they cannot change the course of history, whose first page Fatah’s self-sacrificing fighters wrote with the bullets of the Al-Asifa forces (i.e., Fatah military unit) on Jan. 1, 1965, and on it they wrote their promise to their people: Revolution until victory."
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Jan. 1, 2020]