Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visiting the West Bank city of Jenin. Photo: Reuters/Mohamad Torokman

Palestinian Authority (PA) antisemitism is both vicious and fundamental to PA ideology. The PA’s demonization of Jews, Israel, and Jewish sources and traditions, has a very sinister purpose: It is the basis for Palestinian hatred and justifies murder.

Put simply, once the PA leadership convinces Palestinians that Jewish/Israeli evil is innate to Jewish nature — and endangers Palestinians and all humanity — Palestinians feel justified and even righteous about hating and killing Jews.

Official Palestinian TV recently broadcast one of the PA’s hate libels about Jews and Judaism, spewed forth by the father of terrorist.

After complaining about his terrorist son’s home being destroyed, he explained that “love of revenge is innate for them [Jews]. They learned it in the Talmud and the Bible.” He then repeated additional libels that echo PA/Fatah antisemitism about the evil beliefs of Jews, falsely claiming it is part of the Hebrew Bible:

Their biblical belief is that God created non-human beings in the form of humans. Only they are human, only Jews are human; the rest of humanity is not human. This is how they [Jews] think and this is how they behave. [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, Jan. 24, 2024]

In reality, the Bible teaches that all people are created with the/in the/ “Image of God.”

Fatah taught that same libel about Jewish belief in its documentary about the evil nature of Jews:

In Europe, the [Jewish] tribe established camps and residential areas, crowded ghettos in order to separate from other people out of arrogance and disgust for non-Jews … who according to their [Jews’] worldview are snakes …

[The Jews] were hated because of their racism and their filthy behavior … They swear :… “Only we are people, and all the others are our animals.” [emphasis added]

[Official Fatah Facebook page, July 15, 2019]

The PA Fatah libel that was echoed by the father of the terrorist has practical implications: Since Jewish evil behavior is innate to Jewish belief, then the only solution is destruction.

Accordingly, the terrorist’s father then prayed that Allah should bring another Holocaust on the Jews, bringing up people like Hitler, Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, and Pharaoh.

With this prayer, he was again echoing PA religious teachings, that the Jews deserve their punishment from Allah, because they are “planning and systematically working to incite wars and strife in the entire world.” Because of this, he said, Allah sent the Nebuchadnezzar to destroy the First Temple, then he sent the Roman Titus to destroy the Second Temple, and then Hitler and the kings of Europe, and still the Jews did not learn their lesson.

The father of the terrorist, prayed for Allah to bring a new Hitler to torture the Jews:

We ask Allah to send someone who will torture them like Hitler did, and before him Nebuchadnezzar [Babylonian king who destroyed the Temple] and before him Pharaoh [who enslaved them]. [emphasis added]

PA TV taught that Hitler and Nebuchadnezzar were Allah’s punishment of the Jews:

The occupation [i.e., Israeli] government hasn’t learned from history, from [Allah’s punishments for] the corruption of the Children of Israel the first and second time. It hasn’t learned. They [The Jews] didn’t learn from what Nebuchadnezzar did to them [destroyed the First Temple]. They didn’t learn from what Titus the great Roman leader, did to them [destroyed the Second Temple]. They didn’t learn from what Hitler did to them, and the kings of Europe, and Spain — they didn’t learn.”

[Masoud Rayyaan, lecturer on Islamic Shari’a at Al-Quds Open University,Official PA TV, Oct. 19, 2018]

Palestinian Media Watch has been warning for years that the PA’s teachings and antisemitism must be expunged from PA teachings and national ideology before any peace process can be undertaken. See Itamar Marcus’ recent presentation to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, showing the connection between PA antisemitism and the October 7 Palestinian atrocities.

The author is the founder and executive director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.