George Mitchell: “Fatah Believes in Nonviolence”
- 01.10.2010 - 11:38 AMOne more item from Obama Mideast envoy George Mitchell’s appearance on the Charlie Rose show (transcript here). Mitchell said:
Well, that’s the principal difference between Fatah and Hamas. The Palestinian authority which is basically the Fatah party, believes in nonviolence and negotiation.
This is silly stuff. Fatah, of course, proudly maintains terrorist groups, such as the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades and the Tanzim militia, within the party structure. The gunmen who murdered an Israeli rabbi two weeks ago were not just members of Fatah but also on the Fatah payroll. Just last week, the heroically moderate president and prime minister of the PA could be seen publicly celebrating Fatah terrorists and acts of terrorism.
At the opening of the Fatah party conference in Bethlehem last summer, “Fatah leaders responded with loud applause when two terrorists who committed the worst terror attack in Israel’s history were referred to as ‘heroic Martyrs’ by former PA Prime Minister Abu Alaa.” Jibril Rajoub, a senior member of the party, declared that “resistance was and is a tactical and strategic option of the struggle.”
And so on. Mitchell surely knows that the Fatah party has not adopted a strategy of “nonviolence,” as if Mahmoud Abbas has transformed himself into Martin Luther King or Gandhi. The sad thing is that claims such at Mitchell’s only hurt peace efforts. They incentivize Palestinian terrorism by making it clear that the Fatah leadership will not only suffer no consequences for encouraging terror but will even be portrayed by the U.S. Middle East envoy as exemplars of nonviolence.
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