Violent Jerusalem riots are “peaceful popular resistance,” says PA daily, encouraging more Palestinian factions to join this 'resistance'

Excerpt of an op-ed by Muwaffaq Matar, Fatah Revolutionary Council member and regular columnist for the official PA daily

Headline: “The Palestinian will is triumphing”

“All that we want from factions whose spokespeople or leaders flooded the media outlets with statements threatening to use their weapons is that they stop offering Jerusalem for public sale and encourage their people and supporters to adhere to the rules of peaceful popular resistance (i.e., term used by Palestinians, which also refers to the use of violence and terror), which the residents of Jerusalem have chosen as a path (refers to ongoing violent Arab riots -Ed.). This historical moment cannot suffer having the Jerusalem uprising be stolen or having the attention be diverted from it by ‘the sound of rocket explosions,’ which will change the equation in favor of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and the criminal settlers.”

The terms "peaceful uprising/resistance,” and “popular uprising/resistance" are used by PA leaders at times to refer to peaceful protest and at times to refer to deadly terror attacks and terror waves. For example, ‎Mahmoud Abbas defined as “peaceful popular” the murderous terror during the 2015-2016 ‎terror wave (“The Knife Intifada”), in which 40 people were killed (36 Israelis, 1 Palestinian, 2 Americans and 1 Eritrean) and hundreds wounded in stabbings, shootings, and car ramming attacks. Abbas said: "We want peaceful popular uprising, and that’s what this is." https://palwatch.org/page/9276