{Reposted from the PMW website}
Violence has once again flared up in Jerusalem. The outburst of violence was not spontaneous. It was not a response to any Israeli action. Rather it came on the heels of intensive and focused Palestinian Authority incitement to violence and terror.
The Muslim month of Ramadan started on the evening of April 12.
In the days before Ramadan, from April 2 through April 10, official PA TV broadcast a terror-promoting song and accompanying visuals of violence at least 20 times. Focusing on influencing the youth, PA TV also broadcast the song during the 4:00-5:00 p.m. time slot for children’s programming.
Introducing the song, the PA TV narrator opens:
“Because songs are a basic part of our culture and they express our national identity… and because these songs are present in our consciousness and still fascinate us with values and meanings… It’s here: ‘The Tune of the Homeland.’”
Lyrics:
“I fired my shots, I threw my bomb, I detonated, detonated, detonated my [explosive] belts…”
The narrator interjects:
“We will defend Palestine with our bodies. Our bullets will make sounds of joy to herald signs of victory in order to cut off the invading occupiers, who came from across the sea and settled in our lands…
The song continues:
“My brother, throw my blood on the enemy like bullets.”
[Official PA TV, The Tune of the Homeland, April 2 (twice) 3 (twice), 4 (twice), 5 (three times), 6 (twice), 7 (twice), 8 (four times), 9 (twice), 10, 2021]
Shortly after the start of Ramadan, in line with the PA’s terror promotion, Arab youths started indiscriminately attacking Jews and uploading videos of their actions to the social media platform TikTok. In addition, Arab rioters fought Israeli police at the entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City.
Responding to the Arab violence, a fringe group of Jews organized a demonstration. While originally justified, the demonstration soon lost legitimacy when some of the participants began chanting racist slogans and attacked Arabs. This played into the hands of the PA who used it to justify and incite additional violence.
With nightly riots near the old city, the PA is further fanning the flames. Rewriting history by presenting the Palestinian rioters as victims, the official PA newspaper headline screamed:
“Palestine goes out to help its capital – like olive trees, the Jerusalem residents are continuing to stand firm and defy.”
The official PA news agency quoted PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh, accusing Israel of an “organized act of state terrorism intended to obliterate the Palestinian character of Jerusalem” and praising the rioters’ acts of “heroism.”
“Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh today decried… Israeli police and settlers’ violent attacks that resulted in injuring over 100 Palestinians and detaining 50 others amid tensions surrounding the holy month of Ramadan in Jerusalem as an organized act of state terrorism intended to obliterate the Palestinian character of Jerusalem, impose false facts on it and violate holy places in Jerusalem…
The scenes of heroism emerging from the streets and alleys of the city of Jerusalem tonight of the defenseless Jerusalem youth with willpower and resolve, as they stand up to settler attacks, confirm once again the failure of Israeli plans to Judaize the Holy City.”
[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, April 23, 2021]
Shtayyeh went on to compare the recent violence to the violent clashes that erupted in Jerusalem in 2017, when four terrorists smuggled a machine gun and a sidearm onto the Temple Mount and murdered two Israeli policemen. In response, Israel decided to erect metal detectors at the entrances to the mount. This decision to adopt the defensive measure was then used by the PA to incite violence.
Fatah, the party of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Shtayyeh, also used its social media to fuel the flames of the violence. Under the title, “Millions of Martyrs are marching to Jerusalem, With spirit, with blood, we will redeem you Al-Aqsa Mosque” Fatah declared:
Demonstrators: “Death and not submission
Raise your hand, raise your voice. Whoever shouts is not dead…
Millions of Martyrs are marching to Jerusalem
With spirit, with blood, we will redeem you Al-Aqsa Mosque…
A blessing for the Molotov cocktail without concern
Warm blessings to the stone…
O Martyr, we swear, we will not withdraw from the Al-Aqsa Mosque”
[Official Fatah Facebook page, April 24, 2021]
To emphasize its support for violence, Fatah also posted a video of Abbas calling for violence in 2014, as reported by Palestinian Media Watch yesterday.
Abbas’ Fatah Deputy Chairman Mahmoud Al-Aloul also used social media to fuel the flames, posting a video with demonstrators encouraging death as Martyrs for Jerusalem:
Demonstrators: “We swear by Almighty Allah
To defend the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque
And Allah is witness that our words are true
Millions of Martyrs are marching to Jerusalem”
[Facebook page of Fatah Deputy Chairman Mahmoud Al-Aloul, April 24, 2021]
Fatah also posted images that show masked Arab rioters engaged in confrontations against Israeli security forces:
[Official Fatah Facebook page, April 25, 2021]
Fatah also posted a video of Fatah supporters encouraging death as “Martyrs” for Jerusalem, chanting: “Millions of Martyrs are marching to Jerusalem”
Demonstrators: “Millions of Martyrs are marching to Jerusalem”
Posted text on Fatah Facebook page: “Nablus is rising up for the sake of Jerusalem.” (the verb “rising up” is from the same root as “intifada” -Ed.)
[Official Fatah Facebook page, April 25, 2021]
The official Fatah Facebook page from Nablus added images of local confrontations.
The images show masked Arab rioters throwing rocks at Israeli security forces.
[Official Fatah Facebook page, April 25, 2021]
Sabri Saidam, a Fatah Revolutionary Council Deputy Secretary and Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor also turned to Facebook posting a video of an elderly Arab woman shouting at Israeli border police officers: “A Jerusalem shout in the face of the occupation’s soldiers: ‘Shut your mouth, you insolent one! This is the capital of Palestine! Jerusalem is ours!’”
[Facebook page of Fatah Central Committee Deputy Secretary Sabri Saidam,
April 24, 2021]
Referring to a demonstration in Ramallah, Fatah leadership member and Chairman of the PA-funded Prisoners’ Club Qadura Fares added that the violence was part of “national activities” that will include refugee camps and villages:
“This procession constitutes a starting point for a series of national activities that will include all the refugee camps, villages, and cities in order to constitute an extensive intifada everywhere against the criminal and racist Israeli enemy…Jerusalem was the main reason for the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada (i.e., PA terror campaign 2000-2005, more than 1,100 Israelis murdered), and it [an intifada] needs to break out for its sake against the Israeli enemy, and he said: ‘There needs to be wave after wave until the defeat of the racist occupation.’”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 24, 2021]
Echoing the call of Fares, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is designated as terror organization both by the US and the EU and a member of the Abbas-headed Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) also called to leverage the events into an all-out uprising:
“The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) called to turn the heroic popular uprising that our Palestinian people in occupied Jerusalem are waging (refers to ongoing Arab riots -Ed.) into an all-out popular intifada”
[Ma’an, independent Palestinian news agency, April 23, 2021;
official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 24, 2021]
The following are longer excerpts of the items mentioned above:
Official PA TV narrator: “Because songs are a basic part of our culture and they express our national identity… and because these songs are present in our consciousness and still fascinate us with values and meanings… It’s here: ‘The Tune of the Homeland.’”
…
Lyrics: “I fired my shots, I set my explosive
I fired my shots, I set my explosive
I detonated, detonated, detonated my [explosive] belts
And remember, remember, remember, remember, remember.”
…
Narrator: “We will defend Palestine with our bodies
Our bullets will make sounds of joy to herald signs of victory
In order to cut off the invading occupiers
Who came from across the sea and settled in our lands.”
Lyrics: “My brother, throw my blood on the enemy like bullets
Like bullets from my hands and my mouth
My brother, throw my blood on the enemy like bullets
Like bullets from my hands and my mouth
And bear my wounds as the dawn of the firestorm”
[Official PA TV, The Tune of the Homeland, April 2 (twice) 3 (twice),
4 (twice), 5 (three times), 6 (twice), 7 (twice), 8 (four times), 9 (twice), 10, 2021]
Headline: “Prime Minister decries Israel’s organized state terrorism against Jerusalemite Palestinians”
“Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh today decried Israeli police and settlers violent assaults against Palestinians throughout the occupied city of East Jerusalem as an organized state terrorism.
Shtayyeh condemned Israeli police and settlers’ violent attacks that resulted in injuring over 100 Palestinians and detaining 50 others amid tensions surrounding the holy month of Ramadan in Jerusalem as an ‘organized act of state terrorism intended to obliterate the Palestinian character of Jerusalem, impose false facts on it and violate holy places in Jerusalem’, while making reference to frequent Israeli settler intrusions on Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and settlers attempts to burn down the Church of Gethsemane, also known as the Basilica of All Nations or the Basilica of the Agony, in last December.
‘The scenes of heroism emerging from the streets and alleys of the city of Jerusalem tonight of the defenseless Jerusalem youth with willpower and resolve, as they stand up to settler attacks, confirm once again the failure of Israeli plans to Judaize the Holy City, and bring back memories of scenes of heroism when Muslim and Christian Jerusalemites resisted and foiled the Israeli occupation authorities’ plans to install electronic metal detectors four years ago,’ he added.
He called upon the international community and human rights committees to secure international protection for Jerusalemite Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem Affairs Minister Fadi Hidmi said that the fact that Israeli settler and police attacks against Palestinians have gone unabated since the start of Ramadan ‘reaffirms the need to provide defenseless Palestinian civilians with international protection’.”
[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, April 23, 2021]
Headline: “Palestine supports its capital”
“A procession went out in Ramallah at the call of the [national] forces, which passed through the city’s streets to emphasize standing alongside the [Palestinian] residents of Jerusalem in their battle against the Israeli occupation (refers to ongoing Arab riots in Jerusalem -Ed.)…
In a speech on behalf of the forces, Fatah leadership member [and Chairman of the PA-funded Prisoners’ Club] Qadura Fares said that this procession constitutes a starting point for a series of national activities that will include all the refugee camps, villages, and cities in order to constitute an extensive intifada everywhere against the criminal and racist Israeli enemy…
He noted that the Zionist enemy thinks that by using its army, police, and settler herds it can break our Palestinian people’s willpower by breaking the willpower of the Jerusalem residents, who have recorded acts of heroism in recent days during which they confronted the occupation from point-blank range to defend the first direction of [Muslim] prayer, the third holiest mosque, the destination of Prophet Muhammad’s Night Journey, and the birthplace of Jesus (sic., aside from Jesus’ birthplace all of these refer to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Jesus was not born in Jerusalem but in Bethlehem).
He explained that Jerusalem was the main reason for the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada (i.e., PA terror campaign 2000-2005, more than 1,100 Israelis murdered), and it [an intifada] needs to break out for its sake against the Israeli enemy, and he said: ‘There needs to be wave after wave until the defeat of the racist occupation.’”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 24, 2021]
Headline: “The Popular Front [for the Liberation of Palestine]: We call to turn the heroic popular uprising of our people in Jerusalem into an all-out intifada”
“The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) called to turn the heroic popular uprising that our Palestinian people in occupied Jerusalem are waging (refers to ongoing Arab riots -Ed.) into an all-out popular intifada in order to emphasize the city’s identity and Arabness, to stand against the ongoing acts of Judaizing and falsifying it and the ongoing violation of its holy sites, and also to impose the popular will on the occupation and turn the factors of the Israeli rejection of every democratic national right in the city (refers to PA demand to hold elections in Jerusalem, Israel’s capital -Ed.) into an open confrontation with it.”
[Ma’an, independent Palestinian news agency, April 23, 2021;
official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 24, 2021]