PA President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly in New York. Photo: Reuters/Caitlin Ochs

The United States continues to be the most important international force advocating for Gaza to be handed to the Palestinian Authority (PA) after Hamas is defeated. Despite this, the PA continues to demonize the US as if it were its worst enemy — yet at the same time, begs the US for money.

In a recent tirade against the US, the most important religious figure in the PA, Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs, defined America as the most evil force in the world, endangering all of humanity:

“[America] Satan of the period, the devil of the period, Antichrist of the generation, the plague of the generation.”

[Official PA TV Live, Feb. 9, 2024]

The PA religious leader further accused the United States of going to war against Islam by trying to impose Western liberal values, including acceptance of homosexuals, on the Palestinian Authority:

America, which is fighting today — not only against the Palestinian people — it is fighting against Islam … I swear by Allah, this war is a war on religion, a war on Islam. They want us to adopt their morality and describe ourselves in their terms, the inferior and lowly terms and characteristics [such as] homosexuals, nudity, fraud, and [financial] interest.

[Official PA TV Live, Feb. 9, 2024]

While it is known that the PA emphatically rejects many liberal Western values and rejects accepting homosexuals in society, this topic has not been an issue lately. This demonization of the US by the PA’s top religious figure has nothing to do with any current American policy, but uses Islamic teachings to prove that America in its essence is evil.

In a subsequent sermon, Abbas’ advisor cursed the US, and said that Allah should punish the US with pain either by Allah’s hands, or by the Palestinians:

The Pharaoh of this period, America … just as He [Allah] punished the wicked in the past, so He will punish the wicked of this period. He will punish the Pharaoh of this age [America], the criminals of this age, sooner or later … by our hands or by His punishment. By our hands, or by pain from Him. [emphasis added]

[Facebook of Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Feb. 23, 2024]

Abbas’ advisor is telling Palestinians that if they attack Americans, they will be inflicting Allah’s punishment on America that the US deserves.

Incredibly, at the same time, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas feels no shame in turning to the US to beg for aid money:

The President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, today [Thursday] received the Director of USAID, Samantha Power … His Excellency noted the role that the American agency can play when it comes to providing aid to the Palestinian people, especially in the difficult circumstances resulting from continued Israeli aggression, in particular in the Gaza Strip. He emphasized that it is important to increase the amount of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, including the north of the Gaza Strip, and it is important to renew the American aid programs in the West Bank and Gaza in the fields of infrastructure, health, education, energy, and revitalization of the Palestinian economy.

[Wafa, official PA news agency, Feb 29, 2024]

While it may seem surprising that the PA is “biting the hand that feeds it,” by insulting and cursing America as the “plague of the generation,” this is nothing new.

The PA has demonized the US under all administrations, Republicans and Democrats, and they continue to do so because the PA has learned that the US will continue to support the PA’s political aspirations and supply the PA with financial aid, regardless of its behavior. The PA rewards terrorists, names schools after terrorist mass murderers of children, pays monthly stipends to families of suicide bombers, glorifies murderers of civilians as heroes and role models, and presents the extermination of Jews as an Islamic goal. And despite this, the US has never defined the PA as the terror entity that it is, and the US has never stopped funding the PA.

The PA has been demonizing and calling for Allah to punish America for years, and now joins Iran in defining the US as Satan, yet the PA has nothing to fear. The PA has learned that it can strike out at America as often as it wants, and America will always be there supporting it.

Itamar Marcus, Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.