Self-centered PA worries Iran war will "erase" Palestinian issue
After almost complete silence, the PA finally had something to say about the current Iran war in their official daily. The concern raised in both an editorial and a column is that the Iran war will "harm" and "erase" the "Palestinian cause" completely.
The official PA daily's regular columnist Muwaffaq Matar, who is also a member of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, criticized Iran for attacking the Gulf states. These attacks will provoke responses, he said, which in turn will serve Israeli PM Netanyahu's "goal" to eliminate the "Palestinian cause" from the agenda of the Arab world:
"They [Iran] must understand that their insistence on military responses from the Gulf states will give Israeli occupation system Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an opportunity to confirm the main point of his policy: moving the Palestinian cause from its central place in terms of the Arab peoples and Arab states, and positioning Iran as the common enemy of Israel and the Arab states."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 3, 2026]
In its editorial, the PA stated that Iran is acting out of "Persian considerations," portraying Iran's military responses as part of the ongoing rivalry between Shi'ite Islam and Sunni Islam (see full PA editorial below). But the Palestinian concern is neither the internal battle within Islam, nor the welfare of the citizens of Iran or the other Gulf states. The PA's greatest concern is "the most severe danger" the Iran war poses to the Palestinian cause – it's complete erasure:
"Khamenei's battle exists only in his sectarian and prejudicial mentality, with aspirations for domination and expansion…
There is no doubt that the Palestinian cause has been harmed for a long time by this mentality, which has only produced absurd, nihilistic, and violent policies – and now it exposes the Palestinian cause to the most severe dangers, which threaten to erase it completely."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 5, 2026]
Since the outbreak of the Iran war on Saturday, Palestinian Media Watch has exposed the PA's silent appreciation for the Iran war, its libel against Israel claiming it has used the war as an excuse to prevent Muslims from praying at holy sites, and that Palestinians abroad, including in the US, called on Iran to attack the US fleet and Israel directly instead of the Arab states.
The following are longer excerpts of the two reports in the official PA daily cited above:
Excerpt of an editorial by the official PA daily
Headline: "The spark!"
"In a certain way, Hamas' [‘Al-Aqsa] Flood' (Hamas' name for its terror war against Israel; see note below -Ed.) – [executed] by an Iranian decision – is what ignited the first spark of the fire currently raging in the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who incited and acted greatly to ignite this spark, understood its exceptional value as an excuse for a wide-scale war that would realize for him the [vision of] Greater Israel, under the headline ‘New Middle East'! ...
Tehran's considerations in the whole matter were actually entirely Persian considerations. They were not realistic, and they were devoid of wisdom and foresight...
And here it is paying dearly for it today, and despite that it does not stop acting according to these considerations, which hide behind its aggressive shelling of Jordan and the Arab Gulf states. Tehran understands that these bombardments do not constitute a response, nor will they constitute a response, to what is happening to it in this difficult war, just as it understands that these states have no connection to the war. After all, they have always preached, and still preach, for negotiation and a political solution. But again, these are merely Persian considerations, considerations carried on sectarian enmity that the Shi'ite stream is innocent of, enmity that [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei laid the foundations for ever since he declared that the battle is between the Husayn [ibn Ali] front and the [Umayyad Caliph] Yazid [ibn Mu'awiya] front (i.e., rivals for succession in the early period of Islam when Shi'ite and Sunni Islam split apart), meaning between Shi'ite Islam and Sunni Islam, and that this battle continues. Therefore, it was necessary to condemn the Iranian shelling of the brothers in Jordan and the Arab Gulf states.
Khamenei's battle exists only in his sectarian and prejudicial mentality, with aspirations for domination and expansion. The one who brought him down was not Yazid ibn Mu'awiya!
There is no doubt that the Palestinian cause has been harmed for a long time by this mentality, which has only produced absurd, nihilistic, and violent policies – and now it exposes the Palestinian cause to the most severe dangers, which threaten to erase it completely."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 5, 2026]