F L A M E : Incitement to Violence: Do the Palestinians Live up to Their Oslo Commitments?

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Incitement to Violence
Do the Palestinians Live up to Their Oslo Commitments?

In the so-called "Oslo Agreement", often called the "peace process", Israel undertook unilaterally to make valuable concessions to the Palestinians, concessions that would eventually enable them to form an autonomous entity and to be masters of their own destiny. Never in the recorded history of mankind has any state made such concessions to one of its resident minorities. Israel requested and was solemnly promised very little in return — primarily that the Palestinians would abstain from violence and from incitement to violence.

What are the facts?

The reality, regrettably, has not at all lived up to the agreement and to the promises made. While Arafat and other Palestinian leaders proclaim their peaceful intentions in English before Western audiences, they are brutally frank when they address their own people in Arabic and away from Western newspeople and television cameras. There is constant incitement to violence and frank declaration of the ultimate goal — firmly embedded in the never rescinded PLO Covenant — namely the destruction of the State of Israel and its replacement by "Palestine", an Arab state.
The statements that follow were made by Palestinian leaders not too long ago. They are representative of similar ones made before and since.

• PA Chairman Yasser Arafat (Palestinian Television, August 9, 1997): "We must confront them, we must confront them. We must confront them in every sense of the word."

• Yasser Arafat (Palestinian Television, August 6, 1997): "...let us commit ourselves before Allah and the Palestinian people that we shall lead the coming battle as we have led previous battles. An oath is an oath and a promise is a promise. The whole world stands by us, while they are alone. They are afraid, but we are not. We cling to the oath and the promise. The Palestinian people is faithful to its oath, the one which we swore upon the first day when the initial shot was fired and the first of our martyrs fell...We are marching together with the blessing of Allah, my brothers, we are marching together to Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem."

• Kamel Hamid, head of Fatah (a faction of the PLO) (At a Rally, August 10, 1997): "...all means are legitimate to uproot the despicable occupation."

• Sheikh Hamed Bitawi, chairman of the Palestine Religious Scholars Association (July 27, 1997): "That which befell the infidel nations will also occur to the State of Israel. We are certain that Allah will destroy the State of Israel either through natural disasters, such as an earthquake, or at the hands of the Moslems, or both."

• PA Mufti Ikrama Sabri (In a sermon at Al-Aksa Mosque, July 11, 1997): "Oh Allah, destroy America for she is ruled by Zionist Jews. . . Allah shall take revenge on behalf of his prophet against the colonialist settlers who are sons of monkeys and pigs . . ."

• PA Minister for Jerusalem Affairs Feisal Husseini (May 18, 1997): "Israel is attempting to obstruct peace . . . The only option remaining for us will be an alternative option . . . war."

• Yasser Arafat (Addressing a crowd in Tulkarem, April 28, 1997): "I now see the walls of Jerusalem, the mosques of Jerusalem, the churches of Jerusalem. My brothers! With blood and with spirit we will redeem you, Palestine!"

• Nabil Ramlawi (At a session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Reported March 17, 1997): "Israeli authorities . . . infected by injection 300 Palestinian children with the HIV virus during the years of the intifada."

All of these actual verbatim quotations are only a minute fraction of the inflammatory statements with which Palestinian leaders whip up their followers to a frenzy of hatred and violence against Israel. It is totally against the letter and the spirit of the Oslo accord. But it is in line with all the other acts of defiance and non-compliance on the part of the Palestinians. For example, and most egregiously perhaps, that famous Covenant that unequivocally calls for the destruction of Israel has never been rescinded. Instead of combating terrorist activity, the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) continues to release well-known members of terrorist groups. Another blatant violation is the size and the weaponry of the so-called P.A. police force, which was fixed by Oslo at a maximum of 24,000, but which is now estimated at over 50,000 members, many of them former terrorists and equipped with smuggled advanced military weapons. It is essentially an army in waiting. How do people expect Israel to bring further "sacrifices for peace" to appease these fanatics and why, in the face of daily evidence of Palestinian intransigence and murderous hatred, should Israel even consider turning over vital strategic assets to those who are openly committed to their destruction? Peace will not come to this part of the world until the Palestinians and the Arab nations commit themselves to full acceptance of Israel and are willing to live with it in peace. And that day seems to be a long way off.

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