by Bassam
Tawil, January 12, 2015
The two
Palestinian groups, Hamas and Fatah, are once again proving that when it comes
to terrorism, they are masters of double-talk, saying one thing for the
international community, which has so recently been good to them, while at home
practicing the opposite. Mahmoud Abbas's denunciation of the Paris terror
attacks and his decision to participate in the anti-terrorism rally in the
French capital is also a sign of the ongoing hypocrisy and double standards of
both Fatah and Hamas.
Hamas
should be the last to denounce assaults on journalists and free speech. Its
security forces in the Gaza Strip continue to arrest and
intimidate Palestinian journalists on a regular basis.
Both
groups have a long history of simultaneously denouncing terrorist attacks
abroad while at home doing their utmost to suppress and punish any freedom of
expression. Palestinian journalists have been frequently targeted by
Palestinian Authority security forces for posting critical
remarks on Facebook or for writing stories that reflect negatively on Mahmoud
Abbas and other Palestinian officials.
Hamas's
condemnation of the attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo coincided
with a report published by the Palestinian human rights group Addameer,
which accused the
Islamist movement of torturing several senior Fatah leaders in the Gaza Strip.
According
to the report, the Fatah leaders were stripped to the underwear and forced to
stand in the cold for several hours. The report also said that Hamas
interrogators had beaten them with plastic hoses and poured freezing water on
them.
In the
past year alone, in fact, as the opportunity to be accepted by the European
Union came nearer, both Hamas and Fatah have actually stepped up intimidating, arresting and torturing
journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Their intimidation and suppression of free
speech at home, however, did not stop either Hamas or Fatah from condemning the
brutal killing of the French journalists at the satirical magazine Charlie
Hebdo.
Hamas,
ironically, which has carried out hundreds, if not thousands, of terror attacks
against civilians over the past 27 years, was quick to issue a
statement condemning the killing of the French journalists. In
its statement, published in French, Hamas said it "condemns the attack
against Charlie Hebdo magazine and insists on the fact that differences of
opinion and thought cannot justify murder."
Hamas,
however, was extremely careful not to condemn the terror attack on the kosher
Jewish supermarket in Paris -- because Hamas believes that attacks against Jews
are legitimate. Condemning the killing of Jews would have meant that Hamas
would also have to denounce its own terror attacks against Jews in Israel.
In
another twist of irony, just hours before the Hamas statement was delivered to
the offices of foreign media outlets in the Gaza Strip, a Hamas-affiliated
website, Al-Resalah, tweeted a photo of
the three slain French terrorists and described them as "martyrs."
The
photo was later deleted to avoid causing any embarrassment to Hamas, which is
now doing its utmost to show France and other European countries that it is
worthy of the recent EU court decision to remove the Islamist movement from the
EU's terrorist list.
Hamas's
condemnation of terrorism -- which apparently fooled many good people, who
sincerely hoped that maybe "this time" Hamas was actually reforming
-- should be seen only as an effort to appease the EU and persuade its
government's that they were right to remove the
movement from the terrorist list.
In case
you are thinking that that these abuses apply only to Hamas, sources close to
Abbas said that his quick condemnation of the Paris terror attacks was attributed
to France's support for the recent Palestinian
statehood bid at the UN Security Council. "The
Palestinians are indebted to France for its support of the Palestinian
resolution at the Security Council," the sources said. "We hope the
French people won't change their attitude toward the Palestinian issue
following the recent terror attacks in Paris."
The
Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority has just as a long a history of suppressing
and punishing freedom of expression in the West Bank. Earlier this month,
Abbas's Fatah "celebrated" the 50th anniversary of the launching of
its first terror attack against Israel by posting a
drawing on its official Facebook page, showing a large pile of
skulls and skeletons with Jewish stars on them. Like Hamas, Fatah also later
removed the image as part of its attempt to prevent the world from seeing how
proud Palestinians are of the large number of Jews they have killed over the
past few decades.
Fatah's image from its official
Facebook
page, celebrating their killings of
Jews.
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Abbas is
prepared to condemn terror attacks only when such a move serves his interests.
After the terror attack at a synagogue in Jerusalem last November, only after
heavy pressure was applied by Secretary of State John Kerry was Abbas forced to
issue a statement of condemnation.
Members
of Abbas's Fatah later admitted that
his condemnation was not at all sincere and had come solely as the result of
international pressure.
In
reality, Abbas's media and senior officials still regularly glorify
Palestinians who commit terror attacks like the ones perpetrated by the French
terrorists. They still never fail to describe the men who perpetrate them as
"martyrs"
and "heroes."
In spite of his condemnation of terror attacks against Israel, Abbas has spared
no effort to praise Palestinians who target Israelis.
A good example of Abbas's
double-talk took place last November, when he sent a letter of
condolence to the family of a Palestinian who shot and
seriously injured a Jewish activist, Rabbi Yehuda Glick, in Jerusalem. In his
letter, Abbas said that the assailant, who was later killed by in a shoot-out
with police, "will go to heaven as a martyr defending the rights of our
people and its holy sites."
Hamas
and Fatah are once again trying to fool the Europeans and the rest of the world
by pretending to be on the side of those who oppose violence and terrorism.
This is happening at a time when both groups continue to condone terrorism and
glorify terrorists.
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