Look who's talking! PA accuses Israel of planning expansion “from the Nile to the Euphrates”
Israel is “the greedy Zionist cancer”
Israel - “the greedy Zionist cancer” – is scheming to expand its territory to extend “from the Nile [River] to the Euphrates [River]” according to regular columnist Bassem Barhoum at the official PA daily:
“The goal is to stop the expansion of the greedy Zionist cancer, at a time when the saying ‘From the Nile [River] to the Euphrates [River]’ is still arousing the desires of leaders in Israel.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 15, 2020]
This Palestinian accusation is projection par excellence. As Palestinian Media Watch has documented numerous times, it is the PA that tells its people that their goal is a “Palestine” that reaches “from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea,” and includes – and destroys - all of the State of Israel.
Senior Fatah official Tawfiq Tirawi recently stressed this view, claiming that “our Palestinian land is from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea”:
Fatah Commissioner and Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi: “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]
Palestinian schoolbooks assure that Palestinian youth are raised envisioning a Palestinian state that erases all of Israel, as in this map defined in the schoolbook as “The geographical area of the State of Palestine”.
Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu’s much talked about and presumed future annexation of the Jordan Valley and the Jewish towns in the West Bank is what led to the op-ed. Projecting the PA’s own ambition of expanding Palestinian sovereignty of the PA areas to include the entire State of Israel, the writer accused Israel of planning to go even further than the announced possible annexation and “expand eastwards” - i.e., into Jordan – “when the opportunity arrives”:
“Israel’s goal in holding the Jordan Valley… is so that this area will be a base for expanding eastwards when the opportunity arrives.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 15, 2020]
That Israel seeks to rule “from the Nile to the Euphrates” is a repeated PA libel. Palestinian leaders even claim that the two blue stripes on Israel's flag represent the Nile and Euphrates rivers, alleging that the Israeli flag is testimony of Israel's aspiration to create a Greater Israel between the two rivers, as senior Fatah official Abbas Zaki stated last year:
"We hope that the [Arab] brothers... will ask themselves where they stand regarding their holy sites and the fortress that is defending them from the aspirations of 'Israel' and its permanent motto - as is clear in its flag between the two blue stripes - 'From the Euphrates [River] to the Nile [River]'?"
[Al-Dustour, Jordanian news website, Sept. 8, 2019]
The following is a longer excerpt of the op-ed:
Excerpt of an op-ed by Bassem Barhoum, regular columnist for the official PA daily
Headline: “Annexation of the Jordan Valley – for security purposes or for expansion purposes?”
“Israel’s goal in holding the Jordan Valley, which is supposed to be the State of Palestine’s eastern border with Jordan, is so that this area will be a base for expanding eastwards when the opportunity arrives. This is because a Palestinian state with international recognition within the June 4, 1967 borders means a cessation of the Zionist project’s expansion.
Jordan understands the essence of this expansion project well, and therefore for years it has been strongly supporting the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in all the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This is what explains the strong position of [Jordanian] King Abdullah II and the State of Jordan, as the goal is to stop the expansion of the greedy Zionist cancer, at a time when the saying ‘From the Nile [River] to the Euphrates [River]’ is still arousing the desires of leaders in Israel.”[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 15, 2020]