A senior adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday that any Palestinian interactions with Israelis should end with violence, rather than dialogue.
“If you ask me my blunt position, I would say — every place you find an Israeli, slit his throat,” Sultan Abu al-Einein, a member of the central committee of the ruling Fatah party, told the Palestinian website Donia al-Watan, when asked about Palestinian officials participating in Israeli conferences. “Likewise, I am against talks, negotiations, meetings, and normalization in all its forms with the Israeli occupation.”
Abu al-Einein advises Abbas on civil society organizations.
His remarks were slammed by Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.
“Such words, in the summer of 2016, in a region that wakes up and falls asleep to the news of terrorist actions similar [to the words said by Abu al-Einein], cannot be allowed to stay within the bounds of rhetoric,” Mordechai wrote on Facebook, warning that they would have “repercussions” in the future.
Abu al-Einein has praised Palestinian terrorists in the past. After Palestinian Islamic Jihad member Muhannad Al-Okabi murdered two rabbis and wounded a mother and her child in Jerusalem in October, Abu al-Einein wrote on Facebook, “We loved you, Muhannad. We loved you, while you sowed life for all Palestinians.”
In November 2014, after two Palestinian men murdered four rabbis and a Druze Israeli police officer, Abu al-Einein posted pictures of the rabbis’ bloodied bodies to Facebook and praised “the heroic operation at the religious Zionist institute.”
Abu al-Einein has also supported the execution of Palestinians who sell land to Jews, a capital offense under the Palestinian penal code, saying in October 2014 that they “must be killed in the streets and hanged on an electric pole.” In the same interview, he praised a Palestinian Islamic Jihad member who tried to murder Temple Mount activist Rabbi Yehudah Glick.
Five members of Congress asked Abbas to dismiss Abu al-Einein in 2013 after he praised a Palestinian who killed an Israeli father of five. “Allowing this type of incitement and hatemongering to take place within your ranks is intolerable if you are truly dedicated to non-violence,” they wrote. “We ask that you publicly and officially denounce and condemn Mr. Al-Einein’s remarks at once and remove him from his position in your government.” The Palestinian president rejected their request, saying that Abu al-Einein was an elected official.
Fatah officials frequently praise Palestinian terrorists, a tendency that Israel has criticized as glorifying and inciting violence against civilians.
In March, Fatah’s official Facebook page posted an image praising a Palestinian who killed U.S. Army veteran and graduate student Taylor Force in Israel.
Fatah and the PA also joined Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in honoring an Arab-Israeli gunman who killed three people in Tel Aviv on New Year’s Day, writing on its Facebook page, “Congratulations and may Allah receive you in Heaven.”
According to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 38 people have been killed and over 460 injured in terrorist attacks since September 2015.
[Photo: MEMRI / YouTube]