Palestinian Authority attacks PMW 3 more times: Israeli media “rely on biased sources such as PMW”
As PMW's impact exposing the Palestinian Authority continues to grow, the PA's attacks on Palestinian Media Watch are becoming more frequent. Its latest complaints about PMW include claims that PMW "incites" against the PA by exposing and supplying the US Congress with proof that the PA has been hiding its continued Pay-for-Slay program from its Western donors.
Through its official news service WAFA, the PA objected to Israeli media relying on a "biased source" such as PMW without presenting the PA's side of the story:
"In the [Israeli] paper Maariv, an article was published under the title 'Over $150 million: The revelation that Mahmoud Abbas attempted to hide has come to light.' The article clearly pushes in the direction of delegitimizing the PA and imposing financial sanctions on it by presenting it as a body that funds terror and deceives Washington. This is done by relying on the Israeli version and biased sources such as PMW, without presenting a counter Palestinian version.
The incitement is revealed here in the repeated use [by PMW] of the term 'terrorists' to describe the Palestinian prisoners and the families of the dead (i.e., terrorist "Martyrs" - ed.) in a way that turns a matter of politics and [prisoners'] rights into a matter of terror and rewards."
[WAFA, official PA news agency, May 4, 2026]
Two weeks later, the PA was outraged again by PMW's impact when Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa'ar retweeted PMW's exposure of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas admitting that the PA needs money to pay terrorist prisoners. The PA included this in its weekly report on "incitement and racism in Israeli media":
"[Israeli] Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa'ar
Reposting of a post from the site Pal Media Watch
[PA President] Mahmoud Abbas admits to continuing the method of paying funds for murder.
Mahmoud Abbas complained during the Eighth Fatah Movement Conference that the PA needs money to 'pay the salaries of the prisoners.'
Abbas said today: 'All these funds should be paid to [PA] public employees, prisoners, and so on, in addition to other expenses.'"
[WAFA, official PA news agency, May 18, 2026]
The PA has been in a major crisis because it claimed to the world that it stopped paying salaries to terrorists in September 2025, and PMW, using its own sources, immediately proved it was a lie. When PMW exposes the truth and the PA's deceptions, the PA is outraged, as this information impacts the PA's donors and erodes political support. For example, the US State Department's recent report, which concluded that the PA continued to fund Pay-for-Slay terror rewards in 2025 and that the PA is therefore ineligible for US funding, was based on PMW findings.
Similarly, the PA attacked PMW's report exposing that the PA consistently distorts Christian tradition about Jesus, presenting him as a Muslim Palestinian and the first "Palestinian self-sacrificing fighter" – i.e., a terrorist Martyr:
"In the [Israeli] paper Makor Rishon, an article was published under the title 'The Palestinian Authority: Jesus was a Martyr and "the Palestinian Messiah."' The article uses religion and history to delegitimize the Palestinian narrative and presents any talk of Jesus as a Palestinian as a deliberate forgery and a hijacking of Christian and Jewish identity.
It also relies on a biased Israeli organization (PMW) to present the PA as a body that falsifies history and exploits Christianity to justify violence, instead of relating to Jesus' Palestinian identity as part of a recognized national-cultural discourse. (Note: Jesus was a Jew according to Christian tradition, and the Palestinians have no history prior to the modern period as PMW reported.)"
[WAFA, official PA news agency, May 4, 2026]
Recently, the PA lashed out at PMW, calling PMW "racist" for exposing the PA's hate speech, ideology, and dream of destroying Israel.