Will President Biden revoke the PLO’s designation as an active terrorist organization?
- In their meeting, Abbas will demand that US President Biden revoke the designation of the PLO as a “terror organization”
- However, PMW has amassed ample evidence that Abbas’ PLO is today a terror organization
- Abbas’ Fatah promotes violence: “My machine gun and my bullets are the path to salvation”
- The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades – a US designated terror organization - is part of Abbas’ Fatah and is still active in terror attacks
- Fatah, including its terror wing, is the largest and most dominant member of the PLO
- Other designated terror organizations who are still part of the PLO, include the PFLP, responsible for the murder of 17-year-old Rina Shnerb
In their upcoming meeting, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas plans to demand that US President Biden revoke the designation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as a terror organization. The request is very personal since it is Abbas who stands at the head of the PLO.
Making this demand, Abbas expects President Biden to ignore the fact that members of the PLO, including Abbas’ own Fatah party, are still actively involved in inciting, promoting, and participating in terror.
Just recently, a song praising the machine gun as “a friend, brother, and comrade” was posted by Fatah. The song, originally exposed by Palestinian Media Watch as having been broadcast by official PA TV on Fatah’s anniversary earlier this year, glorifies the machine gun and its bullets as “the path to salvation”:
Lyrics: “My machine gun is in my hand, and I want to continue marching
Our occupied land will not return for free…
My machine gun and my bullets are the path to salvation
Whoever stops my advance – I will shoot them in the head…
My machine gun is my friend, my brother, and my comrade …
My machine gun is on my shoulders, it is my mattress and my blanket
As long as we are together, we will never be afraid”
Text on screen during the song: “Fatah - the birth of the revolution and the voice of the storm (i.e., "Al-Asifa," Fatah military unit). We continue until freedom”
[Facebook page of the Fatah Commission of Information and Culture,
July 8, 2022, Official PA TV, Jan. 1, 2022]
Presumably Abbas hopes to hide Fatah’s promotion of violence, since after PMW saw the post, Fatah has unpublished the video in what appears to be an act of self-censorship prior to President Biden’s visit, and it no longer appears on the page of the Fatah Commission of Information and Culture as above.
However, this one act of artificial self-censorship cannot hide the extensive evidence PMW has amassed that document Fatah's incitement and terror promotion.
Among the recent examples PMW has documented:
- Fatah cannot hide the fact that Fatah boasted the PA Security Forces give “military training” to 7-year-old kids to fight Israel - “the sons of dogs”
- Fatah cannot hide the fact that it recently bragged that its members were the ones who opened fire on Jews going to pray in the Tomb of Joseph.
- Fatah cannot hide the fact that it boasts that the PA Security Forces’ perform a double role of cops by day, terrorists by night.
- Fatah cannot hide the fact that it celebrated a Palestinian attacking a random Jew.
- Fatah cannot hide the fact that Fatah officials openly call for terror.
- Fatah cannot hide the fact that Fatah expressed open support for “the pure and heroic” Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak terrorists who murdered 8 people.
- Fatah cannot hide the fact that its spokesman defined as a “heroic action” a terror attack in which two terrorists murdered 3 Israelis, attacking them with knives and axes.
- Fatah cannot hide that it recently boasted: “No one has inflicted more loss of life on Israel than Fatah. When Fatah would set out to the battlefield, you would count hundreds of killed Israelis... Fatah took down 240 heads [in response to the killing of] Martyr Raed Al-Karmi. No one killed as many Israelis as Fatah.”
- Similarly, Fatah cannot hide the fact that in February this year Abbas himself openly called on Palestinians to murder Israelis.
Needless to say, the above examples are just a handful of the hundreds of Fatah expressions of support for terror, incitement to terror, and glorification of terror documented by PMW.
Fatah is not alone in its terror support, promotion, incitement and participation.
The PLO is an umbrella organization for a number of different Palestinian organizations. PLO member organizations include the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a US and internationally designated terror organization. It was the PFLP terrorists who planted a bomb near a popular spring and detonated it as 3 members of the Schnerb family passed by. 17-year-old Rina Schnerb was murdered in the attack and her father and brother were seriously injured.
Another PLO member, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), recently celebrated its "heroic operations,” listing among them the “Maalot Massacre,” in which DFLP terrorists infiltrated Israel from Lebanon and took students and teachers hostages at the Netiv Meir Elementary School in Ma'alot on May 15, 1974, murdering 22 children and 4 adults.
To this day, PLO officials continue to deny Israel’s right to exist and claim that all means - including “armed struggle” - are legitimate as was made clear by PLO Executive Committee member Azzam Al-Ahmad:
“We will continue to fight through all the means that are available to us... Even armed struggle is permitted. According to the international resolutions and the UN Charter any state under occupation has the right to fight as a liberation movement until the end of the occupation, and we are still a liberation movement.”
[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Jan. 31, 2022]
Needless to say, the above examples are just a handful of the hundreds of PLO expressions of support for terror, incitement of terror and glorification of terror documented by PMW.
Before President Biden considers revoking the designation of the PLO as a terror organization, he must demand that the PLO, and all its members, first abandon terror.