Palestinian Authority leader: Oct. 7 elevated Hamas' status
Jibril Rajoub:
"October 7 turned Hamas into part of the Palestinian national liberation movement"
"October 7…reaffirmed the centrality of the Palestinian cause"
"Fatah's position is that what happened [on October 7] is part of the defensive war that our people are waging… from 1948 until today"
"October 7 is a natural response"
Jibril Rajoub has doubled down on his statement last week that October 7 made Hamas part of the Palestinian national self-liberation movement. He described October 7, which included rape, burning people alive, and over 1,200 murders, as a strategic success for the Palestinians, as it restored the "Palestinian cause" to being a central issue for the region. He also called October 7 a defensive war against Israel, the very establishment of which in 1948 he considers an injustice against the Palestinians.
"October 7…reaffirmed the centrality of the Palestinian cause and thwarted every attempt to integrate Israel into the region or achieve normalization with it without finding a solution for the Palestinian cause…Since the outbreak of the war on October 7, Fatah's position is that what happened is part of the defensive war that our people are waging against the injustice inflicted on us by the occupation from 1948 until today...
The one who bears responsibility for this war is the occupation, and October 7 is a natural response to the actions of the fascist occupation…
October 7 turned Hamas into part of the Palestinian national liberation movement with an Islamic dimension, far from the decisions of the Muslim Brotherhood movement."
[Echorouk (Algerian paper), Dec. 9, 2024; Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Dec. 10, 2024]
Jibril Rajoub is the Fatah Central Committee secretary and a senior PA leader. As Palestinian Media Watch has documented, thanks to international donor countries' eagerness to ignore the PA's support for terrorism and their continued funding of the PA, the PA openly continues to glorify and reward terrorism, as in this statement by Rajoub. The PA has never condemned nor even distanced itself from Palestinian terror, including the murder of children, and in fact prides itself on PA/Fatah involvement in terror. As long as Western countries continue to fund the PA unconditionally, the PA will never evolve into a terror-free entity.