On September 11, 2001, the world was shaken by the acts of terrorism perpetrated by al-Qaeda on American soil. Those terror attacks served as a reminder of the destructive power of religious terror and the need for global action against religious-based terror.
The UN recognized that religious-based terror is significant, dangerous, and unique enough to be put in a category by itself, and designated August 22 as the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief.
This week, as the world remembers the victims of Islamist al-Qaeda terror, it is important to recognize that one of the longest ongoing terror campaigns in history – the PLO/PA’s terror against Israel – is viewed by its supporters as religious war against Jews.
How is Palestinian terror against Israel presented as an Islamic war against Jews?
While the Palestinian Authority tells the international community that it fights and kills Israelis on nationalistic grounds, it tells its own people that killing Israelis and Jews is for Allah. It is therefore critical that the UN recognize Palestinian terror as terror “based on religion” and condemn it along with all the religion-based terror that it condemns worldwide.
Some recent announcements by Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party make it clear that not only Hamas but even the presumed secular Fatah see murder of Israelis as a religious act.
After the Israeli kindergarten teacher and mother of three, Batsheva Nagari, was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist while driving in a car with her daughter, Fatah publicized, on one of its official Telegram channels, that its al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades took credit for the killing as an Islamic religious act, opening the declaration with a quote from the Quran: “‘Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and will disgrace them.’ [Quran 9:14] With Almighty Allah’s help, the al-Aqsa Martyrs… announces its responsibility for carrying out the self-sacrificing operation in Hebron… in which a female Zionist settler was killed and another was seriously wounded” (Fatah Movement – Bethlehem Branch, Telegram channel, Aug. 21, 2023).
Two days later, the terrorist who committed the attack was captured and turned out to be a Hamas member. Hamas posted a video of the murderer Muhammad Al-Shantir speaking just before being arrested, showing that he likewise sees his murdering of Israeli civilians as an act for Allah:
“Allahu Akbar (Allah is greatest), victory for Islam and the Muslims. Those who have come to arrest me, by Allah they will be defeated, Allah willing they will retreat from this land” (Quds News Network, Telegram channel, August 23, 2023).
OTHER STATEMENTS posted in recent months by Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, define both killing Israelis and dying as a Martyr as directives of the Quran: “And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you,” and “they fight in the cause of Allah, so they kill and are killed,” (Fatah, Telegram channel, July 16, 2023 August 28, 2023)
The explicit confirmation that the Palestinian Authority also sees the killing of every Israeli as an act for Allah, is the PA’s use of the term shahid (a martyr who died for Allah) to categorize every terrorist who dies fighting Israelis, including suicide bombers who murder children. Shahada (Islamic martyrdom) can only be achieved if the action is positive for Allah. The Quran defines this death as “killed in the cause of Allah” (Quran 3:169).
And whereas many Muslims will not apply this Quran quote to Palestinian terrorists, the Palestinian Authority does 100% of the time. This means that according to the PA, when any Palestinian murders Israelis, including suicide bombers, those murders are, to use the UN’s words, an “Act of Violence Based on Religion or Belief.”
Moreover, the PA’s religious leadership, for over 20 years, has openly called for the murder of Israelis and Jews in the name of Islam and has done this on official PA TV. Abbas’s adviser on Islam, Supreme PA Sharia Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash, publicly quoted from the Quran: “‘Kill them… .’ Allah does not like transgressors.”
He then cited 10 “transgressions” he attributes to Israelis, informing Palestinians that the Quran’s “kill them” applies to all Israelis. He added another quote from the Quran at the end: “Kill them wherever you find them.” (Official PA TV Feb 2, 2020).
The Director of the PA Ministry of Religious Affairs Preacher Training, Sheikh Majed Saqr taught that: “Allah willing, the end of the Jews and America that supports the Jews will be in Palestine.” (Official PA TV, May 9, 2021). PA TV’s Prayer for Ramadan was: “Master of the Universe. Allah, delight us with the extermination of the evil Jews.” (Official PA TV, April 17, 2022).
ONE OF the clearest and most horrific portrayals of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a war for the extermination of all Jews also came from a PA religious figure, Sheikh Osama Al-Tibi on PA TV. He preached that “Allah wrote in His book... they are cursed,” “Humanity will never be able to live together with them,” “These malignant genes and cursed characteristics continue... they inherit it from father to son,” and therefore “at the end of time the Muslims will fight the Jews,” and kill them. He ended with the prayer “count them and kill them one by one, and do not leave even one,” (Official PA TV, December 14, 2018) – a Palestinian prayer for the extermination of the Jews.
Presenting the conflict with Israel as a religious war for Allah is actively being transmitted to the next generation of Palestinian youth. For example, Fatah’s educational magazine for children aged 6-15, Waed, doesn’t leave the child any choice but to fight Israelis because instructions are said to be coming from Allah himself: “Almighty Allah commands that al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings remain under our [Muslim] guardianship forever… Therefore, the Arabs always rush to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Zionist thieves, those who stole our land… [to] defend our Jerusalem and our land, our mosques, and our churches, and we will redeem them with our blood.”
Moreover, the children are taught that because it’s for Allah, all Muslims must join the religious war against Israelis: “We say to [the Islamic nation]: [Come] to Jerusalem, to the direction of prayer of the religion, to the war that will crush the injustice, kill Zion, and wave the Palestinian flags in the skies of the world.”
The UN states that on May 28, 2019, the General Assembly adopted the resolution titled “‘International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief,’ strongly condemning continuing violence and acts of terrorism… on the basis of or in the name of religion or belief.”
Since the PA, Fatah, and Hamas, all present their acts of terror and murder of Israelis as religious acts for Allah, the UN must recognize the thousands of Israeli victims of Palestinian terror as “Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief” and highlight and condemn the PA’s violence and terror along with its condemnation of all religious violence around the world.
The writer is the director of Palestinian Media Watch. His book Deception, co-authored with Nan Jacques Zilberdik, was acclaimed by Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, as “one of the most important books you may handle in your lives.”