PA: Israel was created as payback for “the defeats of the Crusaders”
Two op-eds in the official PA daily:
Balfour Declaration was “crime against humanity”
Israel – “the foreign colonialist body” - was “planted” to serve “robbery and theft of the resources of the Arab nation”
The creation of Israel was part of plan “to target [the Arab nation’s] interests, rights, resources, independence, sovereignty, and progress”
Zionism has “control over tools of leadership, money, communications, security, and intelligence in large states and world powers”
Among the Palestinian reactions on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, two op-eds in the official PA daily repeated several libels about Israelis/Zionists/Jews. Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, who is a regular columnist for the paper, added the bizarre claim that the establishment of Israel was Christian Europe’s pay back for the defeats suffered by the Crusaders.
He also claimed that the creation of Israel was only for the purpose of destroying the Arab world by stealing its resources– a PA libel Palestinian Media Watch has documented numerous times:
“The beginning of the robbery and theft of the resources of the Arab nation and its peoples took place in Palestine… the moment the foreign colonialist body – in other words, the State of Israel – was planted in the land of the Palestinian people…
This was meant to target [the Arab nation’s] interests, rights, resources, independence, sovereignty, and progress, and also to settle historical accounts with the Arabs and Muslims in response to the defeats of the Crusaders – and not in order to defend the believers of the Jewish religion or [the Zionists] who used them for their purposes.”[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 3, 2020]
Another regular columnist, Muwaffaq Matar, who is also a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, similarly wrote that “the Jews of Europe were used as pawns,” implying the same idea that Israel was created merely to satisfy western interests in the region.
“The Palestinian people’s historical and natural homeland – was the scene of the crime, where some of the Jews of Europe were used as pawns in coordination and a complementation of roles with the heads of the Zionist organization.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 3, 2020]
Matar then used the format of a (rhetorical) question to further the PA claim that Israel is nothing other than a “colonialist” implant, while repeating the old libel that “Jews control the world,” and accusing Israel and the US of aspiring to erase “Palestine” and create a Greater Israel reaching from the Nile to the Euphrates:
“Was Palestine a colonialist base where Judaism and Zionism were used as pawns, or has Zionism developed and turned into a colonialist system that stands by itself by virtue of its control over tools of leadership, money, communications, security, and intelligence in large states and world powers, such as the administration of [US President] Donald Trump in the US, who apparently is currently continuing the plan of ‘Israel from the Nile [River] to the Euphrates [River]’?”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 3, 2020]
While at it, Matar also accused Britain of committing a “crime against humanity” by issuing the Balfour Declaration in favor of “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”:
“The Palestinian people was the number one victim of the crime against humanity that Great Britain committed”
All of the above accusations are part of the PA’s collection of libels against Israelis and Jews, as exposed by PMW.
The following are longer excerpts of the op-eds cited above:
Excerpt of an op-ed by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist for the official PA daily
“The beginning of the robbery and theft of the resources of the Arab nation and its peoples took place in Palestine, with the results of the Campbell-Bannerman conference (PMW could find no reliable record of such a conference, and the minutes of the 1907 Imperial Conference led by former British Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman disprove claims of a conspiracy to dominate the Middle East by establishing Israel –Ed.), the signing of the Sykes-Picot Agreement (see note below –Ed.), the Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration) to establish a ‘national home’ for the Zionist merchants of the Jewish religion, and other serious blows to the Arab interests, which began the moment the foreign colonialist body – in other words, the State of Israel – was planted in the land of the Palestinian people…
This was meant to target [the Arab nation’s] interests, rights, resources, independence, sovereignty, and progress, and also to settle historical accounts with the Arabs and Muslims in response to the defeats of the Crusaders – and not in order to defend the believers of the Jewish religion or [the Zionists] who used them for their purposes.”[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 3, 2020]
Excerpt of an op-ed by Muwaffaq Matar, Fatah Revolutionary Council member and regular columnist for the official PA daily
Headline: “From the Promise of Balfour the First to ‘From the Nile to the Euphrates’”
“If we had read, and together with us the world – and specifically the Jews in ‘Israel’ – had read the Balfour Declaration with its historical circumstances and with the conditions that preceded its issuing, and if we had read the books ‘The Other Side – The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism,’ ‘Racist Israel and South Africa,’ and ‘The Religious and Racial Polarization in Israel’ by [PA] President of the State of Palestine Dr. Mahmoud Abbas, we and the world would be convinced that the Palestinian people was the number one victim of the crime against humanity that Great Britain committed. [We would be convinced] that the land of Palestine – the Palestinian people’s historical and natural homeland – was the scene of the crime, where some of the Jews of Europe were used as pawns in coordination and a complementation of roles with the heads of the Zionist organization…
Currently a question with two parts arises. The first: Was Palestine a colonialist base where Judaism and Zionism were used as pawns, or has Zionism developed and turned into a colonialist system that stands by itself by virtue of its control over tools of leadership, money, communications, security, and intelligence in large states and world powers, such as the administration of [US President] Donald Trump in the US, who apparently is currently continuing the plan of ‘Israel from the Nile [River] to the Euphrates [River]’?
And the second part of the question: Does the fact that [Zionism] has infiltrated deep into the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan (refers to peace agreements; see note below –Ed.) not constitute something dangerous from the perspective of the Arab brothers in general, and in the Arabian Peninsula in particular?”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 3, 2020]
Israeli peace agreements with the UAE and Bahrain (the Abraham Accords), Sudan, and Morocco