US pressure forced Abbas to distance the PA from Hamas’ atrocities – but only for a few hours

• Senior Fatah official Abbas Zaki: “There were large pressures [on Abbas], and Blinken even demanded before he met with him that there be a condemnation”
   
• Abbas’ statement under international pressure:
  “Hamas’ policy and actions do not represent the Palestinian people” [WAFA]
   
• A few hours later Abbas replaced it with this:
  “The PLO are… the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people – and not the policy of any other organization.” [WAFA]
   
• PMW: The PA had to decide whether to be true to its ideology of supporting and rewarding the murder of Israelis… Abbas wavered but, in the end, remained true to PA ideology: the murder of Israelis by Palestinians is not to be condemned.

Palestinian Media Watch has been informing the world of the PA’s terror support, salaries to terrorists, and religious-based Jew-hatred for years, so it came as no surprise that the PA and Fatah have been expressing support for Hamas’ atrocities.

The Western world as part of its refusal to accept the truth about the PA/Fatah has been trying to pressure Abbas to condemn the massacre. Senior Fatah official Abbas Zaki told Lebanese TV:

“There were large pressures [on Abbas], and Blinken even demanded before he met with him that there be a condemnation.”

[Al-Mayadeen TV (Lebanon), YouTube channel, Oct. 14, 2023]

Yesterday, Mahmoud Abbas had a statement put on the website of the official PA news agency WAFA, in which he distanced the PA from Hamas’ atrocities, but was not even close to a condemnation. A few hours later even that mild distancing was too much for the PA and it was removed. The text highlighted in yellow below was repeated in both statements. The green highlight shows what was changed:
 

[WAFA, official PA news agency, Oct. 15, 2023]

In Abbas’ current wording, “[the policy] of the PLO are what represents the Palestinian people … and not the policy of any other organization,” the PA does not distance itself from Hamas or from its “actions.” It merely repeats the common PLO/Fatah mantra that only the PLO is the representative of the Palestinian people and not “any other organization.”

The PA had to decide whether to be true to its ideology of supporting and rewarding the murder of Israelis or to give into international pressure and condemn the worst atrocities against the Jews since the Holocaust. In situations like this in the past, Abbas at times has given into international pressure to ensure that international funding will continue. This time Abbas wavered but, in the end, remained true to PA ideology: the murder of Israelis by Palestinians is not to be condemned.