Jerusalem, 16 December 1997
SPECIAL REPORT A COMPENDIUM OF HATE:
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
ANTI-SEMITISM SINCE THE HEBRON ACCORD
(Communicated by the Israel Government Press Office)
A special report documenting over 50 anti-semitic statements made in the
past year by the Palestinian media and Palestinian Authority (PA)
officials is being released today by the Israel Government Press Office
(GPO). The report, consisting of 12 pages, is being issued in English and
Hebrew and is entitled, "Palestinian Authority Anti-Semitism Since the
Hebron Accord: A Compendium of Hate" and is available at the following
internet address: http://www.pmo.gov.il/english/policy/sr-anti-semitism.html
The report notes that the Oslo Accords and the Hebron Protocol require the
Palestinian Authority (PA) to refrain from incitement against Israel and
to take measures to prevent others from engaging in it. In violation of
the accords, PA officials promote anti-semitism as an integral part of
their rhetoric and encourage its use in the Palestinian media.
According to the report, six recurrent themes are discernible:
1) Classic anti-semitic stereotypes
2) Comparisons of Israel with Nazis and Fascists
3) Denial of the Holocaust
4) Libelous Accusations
5) Delegitimizing Israel and the Jewish people
6) Equating Zionism with racism
Repeated reference is made by Palestinians to the Protocols of the Elders
of Zion, and Palestinian Authority newspapers publish stories about Jewish
"plots" and Jewish "fangs". Jews are often depicted as power-hungry and
lusting after money, with occasional references to Shakespeare=92s Shylock
and the Merchant of Venice as examples of Jewish greed.
In the tradition of the medieval blood libel, Palestinian officials have
accused Israel of injecting Palestinians with the AIDS virus, conducting
medical experiments on Palestinian prisoners and selling spoiled food to
Palestinians.
The Palestinian media and Palestinian officials have engaged in Holocaust
denial and accused Jews of inflating the number of victims in order to
profit from it. Ironically, even as they deny the Holocaust, the
Palestinians regularly equate Israel with the Nazis and Zionism with
Nazism.
Following are selected quotes which appear in the report:
- "Israeli practices in many aspects are equal with, if not more brutal
than, those practiced by occupying Nazi soldiers dealing with French-Dutch
citizens during the Second World War." PA Information Ministry press
release, December 10, 1997
- "... 'Netanyahu's Plan' completely matches the foundations of the
greater Zionist plan which is organized according to specific stages that
were determined when the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were composed
=85" from an article in the official PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda,
November 30, 1997
- "Just as Hitler=92s Mein Kampf was a warning sign for his future politica=
l
path which brought disaster on Germany and the world, so Netanyahu=92s A
Place Among the Nations explains all of the author=92s initiatives since he
took power in Israel=85 The racist curses against the enemy and the
legendary praises of himself make a noticeable point of similarity between
Hitler=92s and Netanyahu=92s books.." from an article by Nahid Munir
Al-Rayyis, a member of the PA=92s Legislative Council (Al-Quds, October 15,
1997)
- "The appearance of the Zionist movement prompted the emergence of
terrorist, racist ideologies, such as, the Nazi ideology. There is great
similarity between the two ideologies: =85 There is no difference between
Hitler and Ben-Gurion, and if there was a difference at all, it was one of
quantity and not one of substance. Anyone who investigates the crimes of
the Zionists=85 discovers explicitly the complementary traits between
Zionism, which is a racist terrorist movement, and the Nazi movement."
from an article in the official PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeedah,
September 3, 1997
- "It is well-known that every year the Jews exaggerate what the Nazis did
to them. They claim there were 6 million killed, but precise scientific
research demonstrates that there were no more than 400,000." from a
cultural affairs program broadcast on the official PA television station
on August 25, 1997.
- "The [Palestinian] Authority cannot do a thing, except protect its
people and itself from an enemy which bares its Jewish fangs from the four
corners of the earth... from an article in the official PA newspaper
Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, August 6, 1997
- "We believe that the Israelis are not adventuresome because the Jewish
brain is cowardly and does not tend toward adventure, but rather exchanges
it for plotting..." from an article in the official PA newspaper
Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, July 27, 1997
- "Israel is distributing food containing material that causes cancer and
hormones that harm male virility and other spoiled food products in the
Palestinian Authority=92s territories in order to poison and harm the
Palestinian population." PA Deputy Minister of Supplies Abdel Hamid
al-Qudsi in a newspaper interview, Yediot Aharonot, June 25, 1997
- "Oh, Allah, destroy America for it is controlled by Zionist Jews...
Allah will avenge, in the name of his Prophet, the colonialist settlers
who are the descendants of monkeys and pigs...forgive us, oh Muhammad, for
the acts of these monkeys and pigs who wished to profane your holiness".
from the weekly Friday prayer sermon by PA Mufti Ikrima Sabri
broadcast on the official PA radio station the Voice of Palestine, July
11, 1997.
- "Israeli authorities infected by injection 300 Palestinian children
with the HIV
virus during the years of the intifada." Palestinian
representative Nabil Ramlawi at a session of the United Nations Commission
on Human Rights in Geneva (Jerusalem Post, March 17, 1997)