PA libel: Israeli PM said “Murder and abuse Palestinian people”
• Israeli PM Bennett:
“The instructions are clear – to target terrorists wherever they are”
• PA distorted Bennett’s instructions to kill “terrorists” into kill all “Palestinians”
• PA: Bennett called “on his occupation army to murder and abuse Palestinian people at their free will,” “Bennett instructs the occupation army to use excessive force against the Palestinians wherever they are!”
Here is a classic example of how a PA libel is created. Starting with a real event or statement, the PA twists and distorts it, turning it into a gross lie.
Following several terror attacks, murders of Israelis, and violent riots during Ramadan, as well as continued Palestinian attempts to harm Israeli citizens, Israeli PM Naftali Bennett instructed the Israeli army and Israeli police to go after the Palestinian “terrorists wherever they are.” Bennett specifically emphasized the target as “terrorists”:
“The instructions are clear – to target terrorists wherever they are, with all kinds of weapons… We are giving the Israeli army and Israeli police full backing to target every terrorist – in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and everywhere else in the country. Whoever raises a hand against an Israeli civilian or Israeli soldier – their blood is on their own head.”
[Israeli daily Maariv, May 17, 2022]
However, to demonize Israel and PM Bennett, and to incite Palestinians to even more violence and terror by creating a sense of danger, which then “justifies” Palestinian terror as “self-defense,” the PA distorted Bennett’s statement. It claimed he instructed Israeli soldiers and police officers “to murder and abuse Palestinian people at their free will” and “use excessive force against the Palestinians wherever they are”:
“The Palestinian Presidency today warned against… Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's statements calling on his occupation army to murder and abuse Palestinian people at their free will.”
[WAFA, English edition, official PA news agency, May 17, 2022]
Headline: “Bennett instructs the occupation army to use excessive force against the Palestinians wherever they are!”
“Israeli occupation Prime Minister Naftali Bennett instructs to use excessive force against the Palestinians wherever they are and with all kinds of weapons.”[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 18, 2022]
“The [PA] Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates today criticized statements by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in which he called on his army and police to use excessive force against the Palestinians wherever they are, saying such statements are incitement to violence against the Palestinian people.”
[WAFA, English edition, official PA news agency, May 18, 2022]
Palestinian Media Watch has documented the PA’s knack for taking a grain of truth and distorting it into a libel demonizing Israelis.
The following are longer excerpts of the libelous statements by the PA:
Headline: “Bennett instructs the occupation army to use excessive force against the Palestinians wherever they are!”
“Israeli occupation Prime Minister Naftali Bennett instructs to use excessive force against the Palestinians wherever they are and with all kinds of weapons (sic., Bennett spoke about using force against terrorists; see note below for actual statement).
Bennett said in a statement to the press yesterday [May 17, 2022] that he ‘fully supports the Israeli army and police in their efforts to harm every “terrorist,” whether in Jerusalem, the West Bank, or anywhere else,’ as he put it.”[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 18, 2022]
Headline: “[PA] Presidency warns against daily Israeli incursions into West Bank cities, Al-Aqsa Mosque”
“The Palestinian Presidency today warned against Israeli storming the northern West Bank city of Jenin and its refugee camp on a daily basis, the random arrests of dozens of people, allowing Jewish extremists to storm the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, announcing the construction of thousands of settlement units in the Palestinian territories, and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's statements calling on his occupation army to murder and abuse Palestinian people at their free will.
The official spokesman for the presidency, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said that ‘this escalating Israeli policy against the Palestinian people in terms of killing, arresting and storming aims to blow up the situation and create an atmosphere of violence and tension that we have repeatedly warned against.’
He called on the US administration to break its silence and to intervene immediately to force stop the daily Israeli attacks on the Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps and to curb Israel’s lawlessness before it is too late, stressing that statements and condemnations alone are not enough.
Abu Rudeineh added that this policy comes at a time when the whole world witnessed the Israeli army’s killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the assault at her funeral, in addition to the attack on the funeral of Walid al-Sharif and the desecration of the cemetery, which confirms that this Israeli government does not care about all these international condemnations, nor the resolutions of the United Nations that have repeatedly stressed the need to provide international protection for the Palestinian people, to stop all forms of settlement activity as illegal and contrary to international law, and to end the occupation of all Palestinian lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, the capital of the state of Palestine.
He stressed that peace, security and stability will not prevail until the Palestinian people attain their legitimate rights in full.”[WAFA, English edition, official PA news agency, May 17, 2022]
Headline: “Foreign Ministry accuses the Israeli premier of inciting violence against the Palestinian people”
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates today criticized statements by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in which he called on his army and police to use excessive force against the Palestinians wherever they are, saying such statements are incitement to violence against the Palestinian people.
The ministry said in a statement that Bennett's remarks are a ‘direct incitement to escalate the situation and the cycle of violence, as well as an official Israeli admission that what the occupying forces and settlers are doing is a systematic Israeli policy directed from the top of the political hierarchy in the occupying country.’
It added: ‘These calls are issued by a racist colonial mentality that denies the existence of our Palestinian people and their right to their homeland, and replaces the culture of peace with the culture of hatred and the abolition of the other.’
The Foreign Ministry also criticized Bennett’s visit to two Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank yesterday and today, saying they ‘reflect Israeli persistence in legalizing, deepening, and expanding Israeli colonies in the territory of the State of Palestine in flagrant violation of international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the international legality (United Nations) and its resolutions.’
It stressed that all this is ‘a new proof of the absence of an Israeli peace partner and that the Israeli government's stated policies and measures are racist and anti-peace and aim to undermine any opportunity to restore the political horizon for resolving the conflict on the basis of the principle of the two-state solution, and a deliberate sabotage for any regional and international effort to build trust between the Palestinian and Israeli sides.’”[WAFA, English edition, official PA news agency, May 18, 2022]