Is Obama "Disappointed" That Abbas Has Not Ended the Incitement?

by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

Striving to appear even handed at his UN address, President Obama repeatedly drew a parallel between continued Israeli settlements and Palestinian incitement. Yet while the media is filled with reports of the Obama administration's disappointment with Israel's refusal to renew the temporary suspension of settlement building, not a peep is heard regarding the ongoing vile anti-Israeli propaganda emanating from the Palestinian Authority. Clearly, the media understands Obama's "even-handedness" is not to be taken seriously.

At the UN Obama was applauded as he said:

We continue to call on Palestinians to end incitement against Israel, and we continue to emphasize that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements (Applause.)

And again:

The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians. (Applause.) And — and nations within this body do the Palestinians no favors when they choose vitriolic attacks against Israel over constructive willingness to recognize Israel’s legitimacy and its right to exist in peace and security. (Applause.)

Israel has suspended settlement growth for 10 months but the May/June 2010 PAL Watch study of the Palestinian Authority controlled media finds little evidence of any reduction in Palestinian incitement:

However, an examination of the Palestinian Authority leaders’ statements, official media, children’s programs and PA-controlled events creates a pessimistic picture: Every condition, principle and expectation set by the US and the Quartet for accepting the Palestinian Authority as a partner in the peace process continues to be violated by the Palestinian Authority in the first month of talks.

Contrasting its moderate statements to Western powers in English with its own people in Arabic the Palestinian Authority, the Fatah leaders and the Abbas-controlled official PA media continue to deny Israel’s existence, deny Israel’s right to exist, define the conflict with Israel as an uncompromising religious war for Allah, promote hatred through demonization slander and libel, and glorify terror and violence.

Nor has anything changed since as Palestinian Media Watch illustrates with these two recent examples:

Sept. 19, 2010PLO ambassador in Lebanon: Peace talks are stage in delegitimizing "rebellious, racist" Israel"

Sept. 21, 2010 Song of violence and death repeated seven times on PA TV

Why hasn't the Obama administration expressed its disappointment with the Palestinian Authority?

Doesn't such an EU funded vile propaganda undermine the effectiveness of the Obama administration funded Palestinian campaign to convince Israelis that the are trustworthy "Peace Partner?"

Is the reason little attention has been paid to Obama's incitement comments outside Israel and the Jewish community is that it is designed exclusively to appease them?

I, for one, would like to be disappointed. Unfortunately, I am not. I would have been really, really surprised to discover that there was any way for the Palestinian authority to disappoint the Obama administration. I suspect he expects little of them to start with and, for him, as for much of the world, they are merely a convenient cause to espouse as a way to curry leftist/Muslim favor.

Judith Apter Klinghoffer

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