Europeans created Zionism “to get rid of the Jewish problem in its lands” – op-ed in official PA daily
One of the fundamental tenets of Palestinian Authority ideology is that the Zionist movement was not an authentic Jewish movement but rather a colonialist movement that took advantage of the Jews. The PA rewrites history claiming the western colonialists lied to the Jews and made up the story of Jewish history in the land of Israel in order to trick the Jews into leaving Europe and coming to Israel.
This, the PA says, the West did for two reasons:
1. “To get rid of the Jewish problem in its lands”
Jews were said to be so evil that they brought Antisemitism on themselves in Europe.
2. “To exploit and harness the Zionists for the benefit of the colonialist project … fragmenting the unity of the Arab nation’s peoples”
The PA claims that Europe wanted to weaken the Arab world and therefore divided it into numerous small Arab states and planted Israel in the middle.
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA at times adds a third reason: The West planted the Jews in Israel to help them steal the natural resources of the Arab world.
This rewriting of history was repeated in an op-ed by a regular columnist for the official PA daily, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul:
“One of the most complicated forms of colonialism is Zionist colonialism, which claims ‘first rights’ on the Palestinian Arab land; is based on negating the existence and identity of the native people, the Palestinian people; and is supported by the colonialist West. The forces that comprise this colonialism were gathered from among the members of the Jewish religion who were deceived; the colonialist West and its pawn – the Zionist movement – led them [to Palestine] to get rid of the Jewish problem in its lands, and to exploit and harness the Zionists for the benefit of the colonialist project whose goal is bigger than occupying historical Palestine: Tearing and fragmenting the unity of the Arab nation’s peoples and dissolving the pan-Arab revival project…
The Zionist colonialism, which has been crouching over the historical Palestinian land for 72 years… is increasingly striving to deepen and widen the ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people and establish its fabricated and false narrative at the expense of the Palestinian people’s identity, history, and heritage.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 26, 2021]