Unmasking Jihad’s Quest for International Legitimacy: The Oslo Accords and Hamas’s October 7 War on Israel

Institute for Contemporary Affairs

Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation

Vol. 24, No. 14

• Hamas’s barbaric October 7, 2023, attack proved that the Palestinian grievance against Israel is rooted in an ideological and religious-based holy war and is not merely a territorial conflict, making the international community’s “two-state solution” mantra irrelevant.

• Contrary to popular belief, the Palestinian Authority and its parent organization, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), have employed identical ideological and religious themes to Hamas in their battle against Israel’s existence and their delegitimization of Jewish self-determination and sovereignty for over half a century.

• The internationally guaranteed and facilitated Oslo peace process of the 1990s legitimized the PLO, for decades one of the world’s leading terror organizations, internationalizing the Palestinian cause at the expense of Jewish state legitimacy on the world stage, which has served to legitimize Hamas’s unspeakable atrocities.

• In order to affect a sustainably peaceful outcome in the region, the PA must condemn the October 7 massacre, abolish terror incitement and incentivization, recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, cease antisemitic agitation and education of Palestinian youth, halt political assaults on Israel in international fora, and actively combat terror.

More than nine months following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, the deadliest terror attack since 9/11, requires reflection, investigation, and military and political remedy. What went wrong? The painful lesson has been a wake-up call that shook Israel to its foundations.

In short, Hamas’s attack on Israel, which it branded “the al Aqsa Flood,” exploited its religious and ideological commitment to holy war, invoking Muslim shrines in Jerusalem.1 It disproved the long-standing assumption in Israel that still defines Western thinking, or at least the hope, that the Palestinian grievance against Israel is political in nature and given to traditional territorial remedy.

In fact, the opposite is true. The October 7 assault was religiously branded and follows the Palestinian “Al Aqsa Intifada” of 2000, in which both the PLO and Hamas were complicit in killing and injuring thousands in pursuit of jihad. In 2023, Hamas was continuing a jihad whose precedent was set by the PLO and its PA strategy of ideological eradication combined with acts of terrorism – a continuation of Palestinian jihad.2 However, many observers overlook or underemphasize the roots of Hamas’s October 7 mass murder and kidnapping, which were planted decades earlier by its Fatah rivals and legitimized for more than 31 years since the signing of the internationally-recognized Oslo Accords between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Hamas’s October 7 massacre and the international reaction to it reflected the Oslo period’s 31 years of incitement and incentivization to terror and perpetuated Nazi- and Soviet-themed blood libels that the internationally-legitimized Palestinian Authority had promoted to the world.

The internationally-guaranteed Oslo Accords had legitimized the PLO, a terrorist organization, by enabling it to mask its objective of eliminating the State of Israel as reflected in their 1964 and 1968 Charters. In essence, Oslo allowed the PLO to reboot its 1974 “10 Point Plan” of “stages” that sought control of any land Israel conceded, from which the PLO would continue its “armed struggle” to “liberate Palestine from the River to the Sea.”3 Twenty years later, the PA continued the PLO’s war of attrition against Israel and its citizens, its “revolution until victory,” inspired by its Soviet mentors.4

The Oslo-era campaign of delegitimization and terror operationalized the PA’s “pay to slay” annuity payment program to families of terrorists, indoctrinated hate and spread antisemitism, radicalism, and political warfare, as well as Nazi-and Soviet-style propaganda and lawfare against the State of Israel.

During the Oslo era and the subsequent Second Intifada of the early 2000s, thousands of Israelis were killed and wounded in terror campaigns by Hamas and PLO terrorists. Yet, the PA was not held accountable by the international community despite its legal responsibility to prevent terror via its security apparatus. Moreover, shortly after the Oslo signing, PLO leader Yasser Arafat called for jihad in mosques in South Africa and Morocco, comparing the Oslo Accords to the Prophet Muhammad’s Treaty of Hudabiyya, breached when militarily convenient.5

During the Oslo years, the PA’s genocidal rhetoric saturated the international political and public discourses. Similarly, following the Oslo formula’s “land for peace,” Israel’s unilateral “disengagement” from Gaza in 2005 unwittingly legitimized Hamas, which had won the 2006 presidential and parliamentary elections across the West Bank and Gaza.

The Oslo paradigm of negotiating with the terrorist PLO while legitimizing the PA as a pre-state authority helped pave the way for Hamas to attain de facto state legitimacy. One example stands out: In a precedent-setting move for Hamas, in 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama offered to negotiate between Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and a U.S.- and EU-designated terror organization, and Israel.6

Since Hamas’s 2007 violent takeover of Gaza, its political warfare against Israel has increased its international legitimacy with an emphasis on making itself more acceptable to major global powers, with the assistance of Iranian and Qatari regime sponsors. For example, in 2015, Hamas operatives participated in Red Cross International training on international law and peacemaking. In addition, Hamas adopted “liberal” language in its 2017 document7 meant to supplement its unrevoked 1988 Covenant, which says it “strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine” (Article 6), that Islam will obliterate Israel (Preamble); that Palestine is Islamic Waqf (Holy Land) for Muslims (Article 11) and therefore its liberation is the duty of all individual Muslims (Articles 13 and 15). It also states that Hamas “regards itself the spearhead and the vanguard of the circle of struggle against World Zionism.” (Article 32).8

Though some interpreted Hamas’s 2017 “reform” document to conform to a “two-state solution,” a careful reading shows its similarity with the PLO’s 10-Point Plan, a “phased plan” to destroy Israel. Hamas’s 2017 re-engineered text invokes the social justice of Islam, interpreting liberation, the “freeing of Palestine” from a non-Muslim entity, as a religious obligation, not given to territorial compromise. Similar to the PLO’s phased plan, Hamas’s 2017 document aims to use any part of conquered “Palestine” as a “launching pad” for further territorial incursions until all are liberated from Jewish rule. This approach reflects Hamas’s “distraction” strategy, which led up to its October 7 mass invasion.

In general, Hamas has taken pains to present a moderate face to the West. Its 2018 “Great March of Return” campaign, which featured posters of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Gandhi, presented Hamas as “peaceful protestors.” Hamas has learned from the PLO’s hybrid warfare strategy. Fatah’s Yasser Arafat had been a Muslim Brotherhood loyalist who purportedly fought in Gaza, and he bragged of his bone fides as a relative of the First Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Husseini, a Nazi collaborator. Current PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas also employs Islamic rhetoric reflecting similarities with his Hamas nemesis. As the PA’s corrupt and rights-violating governance has undermined its domestic legitimacy, the PA has adopted even more extreme ideological and religious rhetoric to compete with its Hamas rival, beyond well-known “occupation” and “apartheid” charges against Israel. Nevertheless, since October 7, Hamas has enjoyed even greater support in the West Bank, earning up to 80 percent of popular support in polls.9

Like the PA, Hamas has also learned to appeal simultaneously to the Arab Muslim world and the West. For example, Hamas identifies as a religious “resistance” organization, misunderstood as a “freedom movement” in the West. Yet, to Hamas, October 7 was justified according to Islamic principles of jihad, a “resistance” to Jewish sovereignty in Dar al Islam, as clearly laid out in its 1988 Covenant.

Hamas’s religious “branding” continues the tradition of Haj Amin al Husseini and the Muslim Brotherhood in emphasizing the Al Aqsa libel against the Jews, that is, that Jews wish to take over the Temple Mount, even though this action runs against Jewish tradition itself.10 Hamas’s branding is no different from the PA’s 2001 “Al Aqsa Intifada,” whose religious reference was repeated yet again in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 ”Al Aqsa Flood” massacre, all reflecting the same religious-ideological warfare.

Hamas politburo member and former Minister of the Interior Fathi Hamad, who previously called for Muslims to kill Jews with cheap “five-shekel knives,” said in December 2023 on Al Aqsa (Hamas) television that Palestinians are preparing to establish an Islamic caliphate with Jerusalem as its capital and that West Bank security forces should rise up against “traitor” PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Hamad called for Jordanians to join this struggle “to liberate Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and [I am saying this loud and clear]: [The Palestinian people] are preparing to establish the Caliphate, with Jerusalem as its capital city, inshallah. Jerusalem will not only be the capital city of Palestine as an independent state – it will be the capital city of the Islamic Caliphate.”11

On October 10, 2023, Hamas’s Khaled Mashal called on all Muslims to join the battle “to shed their pure blood on the land of Palestine,” saying that when “the world, America, the West, and the Zionists” see the convoys of the “mujahideen on their way to Palestine… the battlefield will change, the balance of power will change,” reiterating the Hamas Covenant and encouraging the Muslim “ummah” to take to the streets for “the Al-Aqsa Deluge Friday.”12 Similarly, Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said in January 2023 that after Gaza, Hamas’s target is Jerusalem: “We are convinced that we will not only purify Gaza, but also return to Jerusalem. We will not go there as settlers, but return to our land.”13

The parallels with PLO ideological warfare are striking. PLO leaders have admitted that the Al Aqsa “branding” was a public relations ploy for a previously planned intifada.14 Official PA publications such as Al-Sabah, more than two weeks before the Sharon visit, declared: “We will advance and declare a general Intifada for Jerusalem…. the time for Jihad has arrived.”15

Abbas has also used Al Aqsa rhetoric, saying in September 201516 that Jews should “get their filthy feet off of Al Aqsa,” referring to Israelis who visited the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site. The militant terrorist group, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, for example, was also associated with Fatah until 2007, its name invoking not only Al Aqsa but Islamic “martyrdom.”17

Israel’s policy of overlooking PLO radical rhetoric enabled the international mainstreaming of the Palestinian narrative. This narrative attempted to distract the Palestinian public from the PA’s widespread corruption, which, over time, fashioned Hamas as a more legitimate Palestinian leadership for Gaza and the West Bank.

The BDS Campaign Kept the Fires Burning among Progressives

At the same time, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) crusade, as a weapon of Oslo, has fueled the global isolation and delegitimization of Israel. This helped pave the road of legitimization for Hamas’s October 7 mass murder. Both the Hamas and PLO ideological warfare have found loyal supporters in radical left audiences in the West through the BDS campaign, including the Palestinian Academic Boycott of Israel and Students for Justice in Palestine – who have to justify Hamas’s murders.

BDS’s adoption of progressive Western “intersectionality” in claiming that Jews are not indigenous to Israel but instead part of a ”white oppressor class,” that Zionism is ”settler colonialism” and “apartheid,” filtered into post-October 7 rhetoric justified the massacre of Israeli civilians at the Nova Festival as “colonizers” and “racists.” These movements characterized Hamas’s acts as “resistance against occupation” in street and campus protests and social media.

Decades-long PA assaults on Israel’s state legitimacy have led to a situation in which a previously determined terrorist entity – the PLO – has replaced the legitimacy of a democratic state – Israel. This inversion of legitimacy in turn paved the path for the legitimization of Hamas’s October 7 atrocities in which Hamas is depicted as “freedom fighters” instead of savage, extremist terrorists. Hamas members are historically drawn from PLO “alumni,” and beginning in 2014, they began to adopt the PLO’s now classic appeal to the liberal and former colonial states as a justified revolutionary movement. Like the PLO’s revised 1968 Charter, Hamas’s new document of 2017, meant to supplement but not cancel Hamas’s openly anti-Jewish 1988 Covenant, uses language that appeals globally.

Hamas’s religious origins have been willfully ignored by many Western progressives, who now spearhead the well-funded and organized mainstreaming of Hamas in urban centers and campuses where the jihadi group is seen as leading an anti-Western anti-imperialist cause.

In tandem, the ideological delegitimization of Israel that the PLO initiated in the 1970s in the international community lives today in Palestinian-driven and internationally-sponsored international court petitions, particularly the ICJ and ICC, regarding Israel’s counter-offensive in Gaza. This type of Palestinian political warfare began decades ago. In 1974, Arafat, as Chairman of the PLO terrorist organization, spoke at the UN plenum by arrangement of the Soviets and their satellites. By the following year, the Soviet, communist, Arab, and Third World blocs managed to pass UN Resolution 3379 declaring that Zionism was racism in 1975. In an intensifying campaign of “language conditioning,” the PLO delegitimized Jewish history, indigeneity, and rights to self-determination, a trend that continues today after October 7, in calls for Jewish ethnic cleansing: “from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free.”

The PA’s legal warfare in international courts began in 2009 on alleged crimes that took place in the West Bank and Gaza from 2002 and onwards. Similarly, in the war following October 7, Hamas has enjoyed the stewardship of South Africa, aligned with its military sponsor Iran, that has appealed on behalf of Palestinians against Israel at the International Court of Justice on the charge of genocide. This charge reflects the exploitation of Holocaust inversion against the State of Israel, a long-time PLO tactic. For example, in August 2022, Abbas said that Israel had perpetrated “50 Holocausts” on the Palestinians.

Additionally, a suit was brought before the International Criminal Court against Israeli and Hamas leaders, charging and finding them all guilty of war crimes. These suits show, respectively, how anti-Israel rhetoric pushed by PA leaders over the years has infiltrated into the highest international courts of justice and how Hamas, a terror entity, and Israel, a democratic state, are now given equanimous status.

Western Pressure for a “Two-State Solution”

Yet, willfully ignorant of the facts on the ground, political leadership in the United States has ramped up pressure on Israel to accept the PA as custodians for the “day after” in Gaza, which will inevitably lead to a “two-state solution,” now considered a disastrous end by a massive Israeli majority. U.S. President Joe Biden said, “Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority….”18 These repeated American references to a “two-state solution” and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s hints that the U.S. would consider recognizing the “State of Palestine” caused Abbas to announce reforms in January 2024.19 Yet most observers consider Abbas’s reforms superficial, as are the statements made by the new PA Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa to Western diplomats. On the other hand, Hamas, along with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Palestinian National Initiative, have rejected the PA “reform.”20

These developments underscore the impossibility of a “two-state solution.” Coming after the October 7 massacre and in the middle of a war with Hamas, who still holds more than 120 Israeli hostages, this U.S. and European vision conveys a message to Palestinians that the international community rewards terror.21 Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Strip have issued statements regarding Spanish, Irish, Norwegian, Slovenian, and Armenian recognition of a Palestinian state, attributing it to the al Aqsa Flood operation. This sends the wrong message.

Second, the so-called two-state solution ignores the fact that a Palestinian state would pose an existential threat to Israel, as witnessed on October 7: Gaza was a de facto pseudo-state with international borders with Israel, a functioning government, parliament, security forces, and court system. Yet, this political independence did not stop Gaza from attacking Israel; it encouraged and enabled the assault. Third, the events of October 7 refute the claim that Israel can border a “demilitarized” Palestinian state. Palestinian terrorists and hundreds of Gaza civilians did not require tanks and heavy weaponry to invade Israel and commit a massacre, mass rape, and the kidnapping of some 240 Israelis and other nationals.

Fourth, the international community has ignored the fact that the PA is too weak and lacks political will to govern a Palestinian state. It failed to administer West Bank areas technically under its control, giving way to Iranian-backed armed terror militias and gangs. Fifth, public opinion polls show that the PA is unpopular in the West Bank. This means that with the first “free” election, it will be run by Hamas and PIJ, Iran’s proxies.

Policy Recommendations for the Day After in Gaza

Only a fundamentally different approach to address the PA’s relations with Israel and to manage its internal governance should be considered for “the day after.”

The Steps Required by the Palestinian Authority

Military analysts Maurice Hirsch and Yossi Kuperwasser have proposed six steps to move peace forward: the PA must officially condemn the October 7 massacre; must abolish “pay for slay;”22 must recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people; must cease terror incitement and glorification and spreading Nazi and Soviet conspiracy theories; must halt political assaults on Israel in international fora; and must actively combat terror.

Hirsch further suggests that new PA elections for Chairman and parliament should be held under international supervision, and internationally-designated terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine must be barred from participation in any form. The new PA leadership would function under strict international stewardship to prevent its radicalization.

Second, the leadership and staff of the PA Ministry of Finance would be replaced by international personnel, who would ensure the elimination of corruption, nepotism, embezzlement, and terror support. Third, the Abbas-controlled PA judiciary must be disbanded and reconstituted under the guidance and control of international authorities. The PA must sever its ties with the PLO, whose organizational members are internationally-designated terror organizations to whom the PA supports by funneling hundreds of millions of dollars annually.23

Finally, the October 7 atrocities and the ensuing war versus Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the PA’s acquiescence require a comprehensive reassessment by Israel of a future relationship with its Palestinian neighbors. The three-decade-old Oslo experiment failed ignominiously to foster a moderate Palestinian partner, good relations, and a future of good neighborly cooperation. In fact, as argued above, Oslo actually paved the path to October 7 by helping legitimize the massacre and kidnapping in Western circles.

October 7 has taught Israelis and the free world a painful lesson: ideological warfare defies generous territorial compromise. Had Hamas’s plan been fully executed, Israel would have faced the same existential threat it had against six Arab countries in its 1947-48 War of Independence.

Finally, Hamas’s jihad and even the “moderate and more secular” Palestinian Authority’s religious dedication to fighting the “long war” against the Jews must not be masked as a “political territorial conflict.” That willful blindness to security-based foreign affairs has nearly cost Israel and its nine million citizens the ultimate price. Israel would be advised to adhere to the classic Latin dictum caveat emptor – Buyer Beware.

*

Notes

1. https://www.timesofisrael.com/we-are-all-hamas-palestinians-wave-terror-groups-flag-on-temple-mount/ In 2014, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal urged Muslims to defend the Al Aqsa mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount from “Israeli takeover.” Hamas flags were flown on the Temple Mount as of 2021 In April 2022 Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar laid plans for 2023: “Our people must prepare for a great battle if the occupation does not cease its aggression against the Al-Aqsa Mosque” and said, “Violating Al-Aqsa and Jerusalem means a regional, religious war,” while threatening attacks on synagogues in retribution and hailing a “global shift” for the Palestinian cause. He also said that the Al Aqsa flood only started in Gaza but would expand to the West Bank and Jerusalem.

   See https://www.newarab.com/news/haniyeh-says-hamas-was-verge-great-victory This line of argument continued into the present war. On October 7, Ismail Haniyeh said that the Al-Aqsa flood operation was a direct response to Israeli “assaults” on Al-Aqsa mosque, claiming that Hamas had concrete information that the Israeli government was planning to “take over” the mosque and that Hamas would not “stand and watch the desecration of the Islamic holy site.”↩︎

2. Ibid.↩︎

3. https://ecf.org.il/media_items/677↩︎

4. See, Barry Rubin. Revolution Until Victory?: The Politics and History of the PLO. Harvard: 1996 .↩︎

5. The Oslo Diaries and Yasser Arafat’s Trunk.” CAMERA website, September 20, 2018. https://www.camera.org/article/camera-op-ed-the-oslo-diaries-and-yasser-arafats-trunk/

   In a closed meeting of Muslim leaders in a Johannesburg, South Africa mosque, on May 10, 1994, only days after signing the Gaza-Jericho Agreement in Cairo, and three days before Israeli forces withdrew from Jericho, Arafat called for “jihad” to liberate Jerusalem. Arafat’s speech was recorded by a South African journalist and broadcast on Israeli radio. See https://israeled.org/yasser-arafat-calls-jihad/↩︎

6. https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-obama-mideast-20140710-story.html↩︎

7. The tinkering with official founding documents and the resistance to cancel the old mimics PLO history. The PLO refused to strike out the anti-Israel or anti-Jewish clauses in its Charters, though required by the Oslo Accords. The PLO Charters of 1964 and 1968 contain quasi-religious themes such as references to jihad, yet the 1968 Charter also contains Third World revolutionary language which meant to give the Palestinian a broader global appeal.↩︎

8. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp↩︎

9. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palestinians-back-oct-7-attack-israel-support-hamas-rises-2023-12-14/ ; https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/palestinian-territories/1700158968-survey-finds-majority-in-the-west-bank-justify-the-oct-7-massacre↩︎

10. See Nadav Shragai, https://jcpa.org/al-aksa-is-in-danger-libel/↩︎

11. https://www.memri.org/tv/hamas-official-fathi-hammad-palestinians-are-preparing-establish-islamic-caliphate-jerusalem-its↩︎

12. https://www.memri.org/reports/former-hamas-leader-khaled-mashal-calls-friday-al-aqsa-flood-muslims-should-take-streets This statement only reiterates Hamas’s Charter: “Ranks will close, fighters joining other fighters, and masses everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the call of duty, loudly proclaiming: ‘Hail to Jihad!’. This cry will reach the heavens and will go on being resounded until liberation is achieved, the invaders vanquished and Allah’s victory comes about” (Article 33).↩︎

13. https://www.memri.org/tv/snr-hamas-official-sami-abu-zuhri-purify-gaza-return-land-attack-america-soldiers-jordan-message-israel↩︎

14. Al-Safir, March 3, 2001, trans. MEMRI. See https://jcpa.org/article/one-year-of-yasser-arafats-intifada-how-it-started-and-how-it-might-end/ Palestinian Authority Communications Minister ‘Imad Al-Faluji said, “Whoever thinks the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon’s visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong….This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat’s return from the Camp David Negotiations, earlier explaining that the intifada was the result of a strategic decision. Al-Ayyam, December 6, 2000. https://jcpa.org/article/one-year-of-yasser-arafats-intifada-how-it-started-and-how-it-might-end/ The July 2000 edition of Al-Shuhada monthly, distributed among the Palestinian Security Services, states: “From the negotiating delegation led by the commander and symbol, Abu Amar (Yasser Arafat) to the brave Palestinian people, be ready. The Battle for Jerusalem has begun.” One month later, the commander of the Palestinian police told the official Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida: ”The Palestinian police will lead together with the noble sons of the Palestinian people, when the hour of confrontation arrives.” Freih Abu Middein, the PA Justice Minister, warned that same month: “Violence is near and the Palestinian people are willing to sacrifice even 5,000 casualties.” (Al-Hayut al-Jadida, August 24, 2000 — MEMRI).↩︎

15. https://jcpa.org/article/one-year-of-yasser-arafats-intifada-how-it-started-and-how-it-might-end/↩︎

16. https://www.memri.org/tv/palestinian-president-mahmoud-abbas-jews-have-no-right-defile-al-aqsa-mosque-their-filthy-feet↩︎

17. https://jcpa.org/al-aksa-is-in-danger-libel/al-aksa-libel-advocate-mufti-haj-amin-al-husseini/ Haj Amin Al Husseini, a relative of Yasser Arafat’s mother, ignited bloody riots in Jerusalem and Hebron against the Jews by claiming that “Al Aqsa is in danger.” Husseini asserted that “Zionism is both a religious and a political Jewish idea,” with a goal of “rebuilding of the Temple that is called Solomon’s Temple in place of the blessed Al-Aksa Mosque and the conducting of religious worship in it.” In August 1929, Arabs attacked and injured Jews who had come to pray at the Western Wall, in the weeklong “1929 riots” which began in Jerusalem and spread to Motza, Be’er Tuvia, Hulda, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Hebron and Safed. Prof. Yehoshua Porat wrote, “Toward 1929 the mosques on the Temple Mount became a symbol of the struggle against Zionism. This was a tangible symbol, clear and understood to all, which replaced abstract national slogans of self-definition. Under this approach, the problem of the Land of Israel began to exceed the narrow borders of the land and became a pan-Arab and pan-Islamic problem.”↩︎

18. See https://jcpa.org/the-pa-tries-to-fool-the-world/↩︎

19. Former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also called for a “two state solution.” https://x.com/RishiSunak/status/1716523789532438561?s=20↩︎

20. Hamas claims that the PA’s GIS is working with Israel, Egypt, and other Arab countries. Hamas has arrest, severely beaten and reportedly killed GIS members it claims infiltrated Gaza. The PA claimed the men taken by Hamas were part of a humanitarian aid convoy, while Hamas claims they were only disguised as such and aimed to subvert the Gazan population. Gaza sources also claimed that GIS planned on turning the offices of the Palestinian Red Crescent in the Gaza Strip into security branches for recruiting and arming PA loyalists, and that GIS members helped Israeli security forces before and during the last IDF raid on Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, during which hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists were caught, injured or killed.↩︎

21. https://jcpa.org/is-the-palestinian-authority-trying-to-return-to-gaza/↩︎

22. Despite the PA’s political warfare campaign, there has been pushback against their terror incentivization. The 2018 Taylor Force Congressional Act blocked U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority until its “Martyr’s Fund” stipends to terrorists and their families are cut. The act blocks hundreds of millions of dollars in direct aid to the PA and UNRWA. In 2018 and 2024, Israel’s Knesset passed laws to freeze funds earmarked as ”welfare payments” from the PA to Palestinian prisoners, their families, and those of slain terrorists by deducting them from tax revenues Israel transfers annually to the PA, and instead designated the monies to help victims of terror attacks. In March 2024 the Israeli government has passed a law that enables terror victims to sue the PA for punitive damages. More significantly, the Netanyahu government officially opposes the prospect of the PA governing Gaza, over the objections of the United States and European allies. ↩︎

23. Ibid. https://jcpa.org/the-pa-tries-to-fool-the-world/↩︎