PA: You're a "traitor" if you sell land to Jews
- PA police instructed to “take the firmest steps” against anyone selling land to Jews
Any Palestinian who sells land to Jews is “a traitor,” according to the Palestinian Authority. This was recently reiterated by a PA governor who instructed the PA police to “take the firmest steps” against anyone who has sold or transferred land to Jews. He emphasized that anyone doing so is “a traitor”:
"Salfit District Governor Abdallah Kmeil… emphasized that it is important to defend the land, cultivate it, and defend it from the occupation and the danger of the settler enterprise.He emphasized that it is necessary to receive a security permit from the district before any land sale, both from within Palestine and from outside of it. He said that he has instructed the [PA] Security Forces to take the firmest steps against anyone who is proven to have secretly sold or transferred lands to the occupation, or to have collaborated in the matter. He also emphasized that anyone who does not follow these instructions will be labeled a traitor."
[Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 19, 2020]
PA Chairman Abbas himself in 2014 issued a decision that gives “life imprisonment with forced labor for the clandestine transfer, leasing or selling of lands to a hostile country or its citizens”:
PA TV newsreader: "[PA] Chairman Mahmoud Abbas published a decision on an amendment to the Jordanian penal law and on its previous amendments in the northern districts (i.e., the West Bank). In the new amendment, he instituted life imprisonment with forced labor for the clandestine transfer, leasing or selling of lands to a hostile country or its citizens. The previous penalty for the clandestine transfer of land was temporary forced labor.”
[Official PA TV, Oct. 21, 2014]
Palestinian law signed by PA Chairman Abbas states that one who attempts to sell land to Jews will be sentenced to 5 years of hard labor, and one who actually succeeds in selling land to Jews will be given a life sentence with hard labor.
PMW exposed that the PA Grand Mufti issued a religious prohibition against selling or transferring land to "enemies," stating that this is "treason," a sin, and forbidden in 2018. The PA acted according to this ruling and arrested Palestinianswho were selling land to Jews.
At the time, Abbas’ Fatah Movement repeated the Mufti’s ruling and stated that land sellers are “collaborators and traitors against the religion and the land”:
"The Fatah Movement emphasized that those who illegally sell land to Israelis, directly or indirectly, are collaborators and traitors against the religion, the land, the people, the blood of the Martyrs (Shahids), and our brave prisoners. It added that the curse of fate will pursue them and they will be banished and despised; that their treason will haunt them everywhere until they reach the point where they wish for death in order to be freed of their treason – but they will not find it.Fatah Revolutionary Council member and [Fatah] Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi… demanded that all the families publicly denounce the traitorous collaborators who sold their consciences and were happy to serve as pimpsand support the Israeli occupation against the members of their people.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 27, 2018]
Fatah Movement Secretary in Jerusalem Shadi Mattour likewise explained that the Palestinian people will continue to “excommunicate” any Palestinians who sell land to Jews:
"Fatah Movement Secretary in Jerusalem Shadi Mattour said: 'We will continue to pursue those who illegally transfer property in Jerusalem to the occupation.These steps by the occupation will not prevent the members of our people from excommunicating them and stopping themin order to protect the property in Jerusalem from Judaization.'”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 5, 2018]