Fatah Official: “Our Goal is Not Peace, but Rather Palestine”

 

by Hillel Fendel

"Our goal has never been peace," says a Fatah official in a PA TV panel. "Peace is a means; the goal is Palestine" – meaning the conquest of Israel.

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), directed by Itamar Marcus, reports on a panel discussion on a television program of the Fatah organization broadcast this past week. Headed by Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah is considered the more moderate wing of the Palestinian Authority, compared with Hamas.

The panel discussion shows that in actuality, Fatah is no less firm than Hamas in seeking the goal of Israel's destruction. Kifah Radaydeh, the deputy head of the Jerusalem chapter of Fatah, says openly that the PA will resume violence and terror against Israel when Fatah is "capable," and "according to what seems right."

"It has been said that we are negotiating for peace," she further stated, "but our goal has never been peace. Peace is a means; the goal is Palestine." 

Radaydeh is considered a "promising and rising young force" in Fatah, according to a PMW source, "and this report will likely give her extra prominence. But we have to publicize her words in order that the truth about the PA and Fatah be known."

PMW was established in 1996 to "gain an understanding of Palestinian society through the monitoring of the Palestinian Arabic language media and schoolbooks," its website states. The organization "analyzes Palestinian Authority culture and society from numerous perspectives, including studies on summer camps, poetry, schoolbooks, religious ideology, crossword puzzles, and more. [It play the critical role of documenting the contradictions between the image the Palestinians present to the world in English and the messages to their own people in Arabic."

Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, writing this latest PMW report, emphasize that when Fatah refers to "Palestine," as when Radaydeh says the "goal is Palestine," the reference is to all of Israel. As proof, it is noted that the Fatah flag still shows the map of Israel under rifles.

In addition, Fatah MP Najat Abu Bakr said in a PA TV interview last year that Fatah's goal remains the destruction of Israel, but that their political plan is to focus on returning to the 1967 borders. "It doesn't mean that we don't want the 1948 borders," Abu Bakr said, referring to all of Israel," but rather that "our current political program is to say that we want the 1967 borders."

Just four months ago, senior PA official Mohammed Dahlan stressed that Fatah adamantly refuses to recognize Israel, and that even the Palestinian Authority's recognition is only for the sake of receiving foreign aid:

             "…the Fatah movement does not recognize Israel, even today... [such recognition i required of the government but not of the Fatah, so that this government will be able to offer the necessary assistance, to carry out the necessary reconstruction, to offer assistance to the sick, to bring relief to needy families... This can be dealt with [onl by a government that has relations with the international community, one that is acceptable to the international community, in order that we can work together and benefit from the international community." 

 

 

Hillel Fendel

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