An international media outlet has caught Britain’s Consul-General to Jerusalem, Alastair McPhail in a photograph wearing a scarf heavily embroidered with the typical kefiyya symbols and festooned with the ‘Free Palestine’ logo during a receent visit to Gaza.
McPhail was accompanied by a Fatah official wearing a similar scarf, likewise decorated.
The photo, credited to ‘Islamic Relief Palestine,’ was brought to light by columnist Jack Moore, writing for the International Business Times (IBT), who said the pic appeared on the IRP website, “showing a Palestinian flag and the land of Palestine before the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan which created the State of Israel.” Moore added that the image was “particularly controversial today as it appears to advocate the removal of Israel from the region and the creation of a full Palestinian state in its place.”
The photo was snapped during an official visit earlier this year by British diplomats to Gaza when Al Azhar University opened a new laboratory funded in part by the UK government, as seen on the Islamic Relief website.
“Dr Alastair McPhail, British Consul General to Jerusalem has visited Islamic Relief in Gaza and participated in the inauguration of the Health Professions Lab at Al-Azhar University which was co-funded by Islamic Relief and the British Consulate,” a statement reads on the site. Islamic Relief is an international organization that provides monetary support to Islamic communities around the world. “The inauguration of the lab was attended by the British Consul, Islamic Relief Country Director Muneeb Abu Ghazaleh and a number of representatives from the consulate, the university and Islamic Relief. The project involved furnishing and rehabilitating the health professions lab at Al-Azhar College for intermediate studies including the basic needs of furniture and installations.”
For the record, Mr. Moore, the image on the scarf, which is also seen on a poster sometimes proudly brandished in photos by Ramallah-based PA Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, does not “appear” to advocate anything. It clearly advocates, in bold color and fabric, the absolute annihilation of the Jewish State and always has.
The desire has been stated repeatedly in all Palestinian Arab media. For your convenience those constant bits of incitement and hate — fed regularly even to Palestinian Arab children as young as three years old — are translated into understandable English by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) watchdog and Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) organizations.
They are broadcast on television and disseminated in print media by the Fatah-led “moderate” Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority government that re-united a few months ago with the bloodthirsty Hamas terrorist organization.
Of course, they are also broadcast on television and posted on the Internet in much blunter, more stark, easy-to-understand language by the Gaza-based Hamas government..
But Hamas has always been the more honest and straightforward of the two factions, stating clearly from the outset in its founding charter that its raison d’etre is the destruction and elimination of the State of Israel.
Didn’t you know that?