Abbas praises October 7 massacre ahead of pro-Palestinian summit
“The attacks shook the foundations of the Israeli entity… revealed its glaring failure,” PA chairman Abbas said in an interview published last week and exposed by PMW.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas praised the October 7 Hamas attack as achieving “important goals.”
In an interview published last Sunday by the Palestinian Authority’s official daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, and exposed by Palestinian Media Watch, Abbas described the attack in terms that focused on its “strategic impact” against Israel, ignoring the casualties and the hostages.
“On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a sudden attack... killed 1,200 Israelis, abducted 250 others, and took them as hostages. This attack shook the foundations of the Israeli entity,” Abbas stated in the interview, which originally took place a few months ago, but is now being published as part of a series of articles, providing a glimpse into a new book that will be published about Abbas’s life and work.
Abbas highlighted what he characterized as Hamas’s achievements, saying the operation “exposed the [false] claims that... it has an invincible army” and revealed “the glaring failure of this entity’s components, especially the army and the various security forces.”
Abbas also stressed Israel’s failure “to discover what Hamas was planning and to block the attack and prevent heavy losses,” framing the intelligence failure as a strategic victory for the Palestinian cause.
“As important as the goals that Hamas attempted to achieve through this attack may have been, they are not comparable to the damages and heavy losses that the Gaza Strip residents... have suffered,” Abbas said.
Adding to the controversy, Abbas’s senior adviser Mahmoud Al-Habbash recently defended the October 7 attack as “legitimate resistance” in a March interview, stating five times that “resistance is legitimate” and declaring that “what happened on October 7 is a legitimate thing,” also focusing on its implications – rather than the violent terrorist acts.
Recognition of Palestinian statehood
These comments come as France and Saudi Arabia prepare to sponsor a United Nations event on June 17 designed to advance international recognition of Palestinian statehood. Western leaders are expected to attend the ceremony, which would represent a significant diplomatic achievement for the PA, criticized by Israeli officials as a “prize for Hamas’s terrorism.”The timing of Abbas’s published remarks has intensified scrutiny of the PA’s position on terrorism and violence. Critics argue that Abbas’s comments reveal a stark disconnect between his public messaging to international audiences and his statements to Palestinian constituencies in Arabic.
Palestinian Media Watch, which translated and published the interview, argued that Abbas’s statements demonstrate the PA’s continued support for terrorism and raise fundamental questions about its suitability for statehood.
Itamar Marcus, founder and director of PMW, said the interview shows that the PA unabashedly remains a terror-supporting entity.
“Tragically, the very same Western countries that are going to the UN next week to promote a two-state solution are clearly opposed to the PA’s values, but ignore the terror support when it’s from the PA,” Marcus said.
“PMW is calling on the Israeli and American governments to take a principled stand to stop this terrorist-supporting UN event. Israel must prevent Mahmoud Abbas or any PA leader from leaving for the UN until Mahmoud Abbas retracts both his and his advisor’s statements defending October 7, and the US should not give visas to any PA officials until Abbas retracts.”
He said the Israeli government must notify France and Saudi Arabia, the cosponsors of the UN event, exactly what the PA stands for.
“Mahmoud Abbas has reminded us once again that if the PA were to become a state, it would be a terror state.”
