Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas has remained mum more than 36 hours after a PA terrorist kidnapped and murdered an IDF soldier and even after security forces quickly arrested the terrorist in his home in western Samaria.
The United States has condemned the kidnap-murder. Robert Serry, longtime critic of Israel and also the U.N. coordinator of the “Peace Process,” declared the terrorist attack a “shocking murder.” And Abbas is silent.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has not yet commented, but we can count on the State Dept. to comment at the daily media briefing on Monday that the attack “proves that both sides much reach a peace agreement.”
If the reporters are on their toes, they will remind the State Dept. spokesmen that Kerry bragged last year that Abbas is doing such a great job at stopping terror that not a single Jew was murdered by a terrorist for a whole year.
Forget the fact that there were dozens of attempts to kill Jews. Facts are facts, and 12 months without a murder proves something – basically that the IDF was on its toes by doing what is supposed to be Abbas’ job of arresting heavy-duty terrorists.
Of course, Kerry’s boast on behalf of Abbas was irrelevant a few weeks later, when a Palestinian Authority stabbed an Israeli to death in Samaria earlier this year.
And now we have the second casualty of terror at the hands of a Palestinian Authority resident. Nidal Amer, from a village near the city of Kalkilya that is located next to the northern metropolitan Tel Aviv city of Kfar Saba, killed Sgt. Tomer Hazan after luring him to share a taxi ride. Both of them worked together in a Tel Aviv area restaurant.
The IDF reported, “In his investigation, Amer added that the motive for murdering the soldier was to trade his body for the release of his brother – Nur Al Din Amer – a Tanzim Fatah terrorist imprisoned since 2003 for his involvement in several terror attacks.”
Abbas previously has demanded that Israel free all Palestinian Authority terrorists and prisoners. His silence after the terrorist attack that ended the life of Sgt. Hazan raises two questions: If Abbas wants to prove he is trying to stop terror, even though he incites it in speeches in Arabic, why doesn’t he condemn it? And if he wants to prove to his Arab constituents that he really wants Israel to free all terrorists, why doesn’t he demand that Israel free Amer now instead of going through all the trouble to try, convict and jail him?
Not only is Abbas silent, but the official Palestinian Authority website also did not even mention the kidnap-murder.
In its daily review of the Arab press, the PA WAFA website listed the leading stories in PA Newspapers:
- The Israeli army attack on an international aid convoy carrying humanitarian supplies to residents of Khirbet Makhoul in the Jordan Valley.
- The upcoming meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee that meets periodically to discuss financial aid to the Palestinian Authority.
- The trip Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah is going to make to New York to attend the AHLC meeting and his efforts to bring $500 million in budget support to help the PA overcome its deficit.
- The PA is going to address the donors and tell them that chances for a two-state solution are fading quickly because of Israel’s settlement activities.
- The papers also reported on the weekly anti-settlements, anti-wall protests in various West Bank villages and which the Israeli army usually attacks with force causing several injuries.
Outside of a few mentions of leftist protests and “settlers breaking into Solomon Pools area in Bethlehem,” there was not a word about the kidnap-murder.
It simply did not happen.
Al Jazeera, which now has an outlet in the United States, reported on “killing” and did not refer to it as terror. It noted, “The killing could deal a new blow to US-led peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinian Authority” and it hastened to add, “The deaths of several Palestinians in Israeli arrest raids in the West Bank intended to detain fighters involved in attacks have further soured the atmosphere between the two sides.”
The reportage reflects an inherent an insidious bias. The terrorist are “fighters” and their arrests and deaths – not the terrorist activity itself – are what “soured the atmosphere.”