Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (C) alongside Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (L) and former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, July 26, 2023. Photo: Reuters/Palestinian Presidents’ Office

Palestinian Media Watch has documented repeatedly that the Palestinian population embraces terror and that the Palestinian movements compete for popular support by arguing over who has committed more terror.

In a recent example, Mahmoud Abbas’ senior advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash bragged that the PLO/Fatah has been fighting Israel since 1964, whereas Hamas only “bore arms” in 1990.

Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “Since when did Hamas bear arms to say that its weapons are related to the existence of the occupation [i.e., Israel]? The occupation is 77 years old [i.e., since the establishment of modern Israel], or at least since 1967, and Hamas did not bear arms until 1990. On the contrary, it opposed the PLO, which has borne arms since 1964.”

[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, YouTube channel, Oct. 26, 2025]

That declaration is not an occasional slip. Al-Habbash and other senior Palestinian Authority (PA) officials embrace violence as a political tool and insist that the “armed struggle,” a euphemism for terror, is a Palestinian prerogative. This latest statement simply restates — with pride — the PLO/PA’s historic role as the original Palestinian terror movement.

The Al-Habbash admission must be read alongside recent statements by another top Fatah official, Jibril Rajoub, who has publicly urged that the PA unite with Hamas under the PLO framework.

Rajoub said that the successor to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh should both “maintain the unity of Hamas” and have “a strategic vision to integrate Hamas within the national framework”:

Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub:“One of the intelligence agency heads asked me after the Martyrdom of [Hamas Political Bureau Chairman] Ismail Haniyeh who I think might replace him. I told him: I want someone who, first of all, will be able to maintain the unity of Hamas, and secondly, who will calm the region and have a strategic vision to integrate Hamas within the national framework.”

[Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Sept. 11, 2025]

Rajoub went further in August 2025 and explicitly called on Hamas to partner with the PA:

Jibril Rajoub: “I say to our brothers in Hamas, we in Fatah tell you: Let us reach an agreement regarding the vision that will reap the fruits of the sacrifice that the Palestinian people have made from 1948 until today.

The Palestinian struggle did not start yesterday, two years ago, or 30 years ago. The Palestinian national struggle is the other side [of the coin] of the unilateral aggression that has been carried out against us for 77 years of struggle…

Sooner or later the Palestinian state will be established, and we will remain here, and they [Israelis] will go to the trash can of history.” [emphasis added]

[Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Aug. 21, 2025]

Those are the words of a leader openly planning a shared militant-national project with Hamas, rather than someone who is supposed to be representing the ruling party of a supposedly revitalized and Hamas-free Palestinian Authority.

This pattern reveals several dangerous messages from the PA:

1. Hypocrisy toward the international community: On the one hand, the PA seeks international legitimacy and aid, claiming it fights terror. In reality, the PA’s senior officials publicly reaffirm and even boast of its terror history and a desire to ally with Hamas — the very organization the PA pretends to distance itself from in diplomatic settings. The statements by Al-Habbash and Rajoub together expose a dual strategy: feigning reform to cultivate international support while simultaneously supporting terror and strengthening ties with Hamas.
2. Normalization of violence as statecraft: Al-Habbash’s factual framing (PLO “bore arms” since 1964; Hamas only from 1990) is presented as a point of pride. Rajoub’s public courting of Hamas — and his prediction that Israelis “will go to the trash can of history” — demonstrate that a long-term terror struggle plus the delegitimization of Israel are central to the PA’s strategy, not deviations from it.
3. A strategic alliance, not actual rivalry: Where Western audiences and donors may imagine a Fatah-Hamas rivalry that favors moderation, Rajoub’s welcoming of Hamas shows that the PA does not really want to have Hamas destroyed. Rather, the PA seeks to have Hamas serve as a junior partner within the PLO as part of a Palestinian state that will fight to put Israel in said “trash can of history.”

Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is the Founder and Director of PMW, where a version of this article first appeared.