PA's Fatah Violates Roadmap Demand to Recognize Israel
(IsraelNN.com) Senior Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan confirmed on Tuesday that Fatah, which leads the Palestinian Authority, does not recognize Israel, one of the basic demands of the Roadmap plan. The Western world has boycotted the Hamas terrorist organization because of the same refusal to acknowledge the existence of the Jewish state.
The other two requirements in the American-backed Roadmap plan - renouncing violence and accepting existing agreements - also have been violated by the PA.
"I want to say for the thousandth time, in my own name and in the name of all of my fellow members of the Fatah movement: We do not demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel," Dahlan said on PA television.
"On the contrary, we demand of the Hamas movement not to recognize Israel because the Fatah movement does not recognize Israel even today, added Dahlan. He was Fatah's top official in the Gaza region until Hamas won a militia war against the rival sect nearly two years ago.
Dahlan explained that although Fatah, headed by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, does not recognize Israel, the PA does -- but only in order to receive aid from the international community. Western countries have poured billions of dollars into the Ramallah-based administration.
The United States this week announced it is spending more than $100 million on a training base in Jericho for an emerging PA army, which the State Department refers to as "special forces."
Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, who operate the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), translated Dahlan's televised interview into English.
In the interview, Dahlan commented, "The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) in 1993 recognized Israel. As Israel recognized the PLO, Every person has the right to say 'I do not recognize,' okay? It's your right. It is the right of every organization."
Abbas has stated several times that the PA reserves the right to violence if Israel does not meet its demands for a new Arab country, which it wants to establish on the land of Judea, Samaria, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem.
The PA also has violated Roadmap conditions and previous agreements prohibiting incitement and violence against Israel. Fatah's military wing, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorist organization, has carried out a number of attacks against Israeli civilians since Abbas was elected to succeed Yasser Arafat after his death in 2004.
Fatah initially took responsibility this week for the murder of two Israeli policemen in the Jordan Valley, but the announcement was quickly followed by a claim of responsibility by a group with a different name.
Last week, PA TV celebrated the 31st anniversary of the March 11, 1978 attack on an Israeli bus, killing 37 civilians. The hour-long program "included file film of PLO training camps, and interviews with a number of terrorists describing the planning and implementation of the attack." Marcus and Cook wrote.
The narrator opened the program by stating that the attack was "one of the most important and most prominent special actions executed by the Palestinian revolution by sea, on the coast between Haifa and Tel Aviv. This action, which was carried out by a group of heroes and led by the heroic fighter Dalal Mughrabi, had a great impact on continuing events of the Arab-Israeli conflict."
A new "peace poll" by the Truman Institute at Tel Aviv University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research revealed that 54 percent of PA Arabs support terror attacks inside Israel, compared with only 42 percent who oppose such attacks.
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