The Hate Industry: the Palestinian media affiliated with both Hamas, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority continue incitement against Israel. It is in direct contravention of the Palestinian commitment to the first phase of the road map.

“For the sake of the place from which your prophet rode through the night sky [i.e., the Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa mosque], run to help, Muslims” (Firas Website, affiliated with Fatah, December 12, 2007).

Overview

1. In the months that preceded the Annapolis meeting the Palestinian media carried larger amounts of anti-Israel incitement than usual, which continued and even increased afterwards. Often woven into it were anti-Semitic symbols and images which were irrelevant to the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

2. Anti-Israeli incitement is an integral part of the campaign Hamas directed against the Annapolis process, the United States and the PA. However, even the PA media itself, controlled by Abu Mazen and Fatah, were methodical in their propaganda policy of vicious anti-Israeli incitement , while expressing serious doubts regarding Annapolis . The hatred expressed by the media goes far beyond legitimate criticism , even severe criticism, of Israel 's policies in the PA-administered territories.

3. The raw material for the PA's anti-Israeli propaganda comes from daily life in the PA-administered territories. However, the Palestinian media present a one-sided, extremist view of the situation. Israel is represented as ceaseless endeavoring to make the Palestinian populace miserable and is “killing” the peace process while the terrorist attacks to which the IDF responds are almost never condemned and no connection is ever made between them and Israel's counterterrorist activities in the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria. ¹

4. However, in our assessment, in the background lies the enormous gulf in expectations which has accompanied the Annapolis process from its inception. It is based, perhaps unavoidably, on the maximalist demands presented by the PA since the beginning of the talks with Israel about the core issues , among them borders, refugees and Jerusalem . From the beginning, the PA demands were not accompanied by groundwork to alter Palestinian public opinion regarding the need to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and to make concessions and compromises as part of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, but rather the opposite: Israel is consistently represented as responsible for the lack of process and for the anger channeled at it.

5. Paradoxically, anti-Israeli incitement has continually increased as the negotiations progress. That is in direct contravention of the Palestinian commitments to the first phase of the road map , which requires the PA to stop terrorism and violence and to put an end to anti-Israeli incitement, which serves to encourage terrorists and terrorism. Those two basic components of the road map have not been implemented so far by Abu Mazen's PA. While the PA cannot in fact put an end to Hamas's hate campaign (which is also aimed at the PA), it allows, and even encourages anti-Israeli incitement in all the media it controls .

Palestinian media anti-Israeli incitement

Controlled Palestinian TV

6. Palestinian TV is under the control of Abu Mazen's presidential office and considered his official mouthpiece. After a long period in which Palestinian TV decreased the volume of its hate propaganda, during the months preceding and following the Annapolis meeting much more anti-Israeli content has appeared in the programming. The trend began during the second half of October 2007 and continues to this day (second half of January, 2008) (For examples see Appendix I ).

Vicious cartoons in the establishment media

7. After the Annapolis meeting much larger doses of anti-Israeli incitement appeared in the PA and Fatah media and as well as in neutral PA media. It was accompanied by expressions of deep pessimism regarding the possible success of the peace process, expressed in cartoons in which the State of Israel (very often depicted as a stereotyped Stürmer Jew) is accused of killing the peace process (with American support). Israeli construction in new neighborhoods in Jerusalem and Israeli settlements are represented snakes, an anti-Semitic symbol for the Jews, or monsters, and as killing the dove of peace. Israeli security force counterterrorist activities in the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria are represented as deliberately targeting the civilian Palestinian population, and ignore the continual rocket fire and other terrorist attacks carried out against Israel (See Appendix II ).

Hate campaign in the Hamas media

8. Before the Annapolis meeting, Hamas conducted a virulent hate campaign against Israel and Abu Mazen's PA. The central motifs were adherence to Palestinian refugees' “right to return,” opposition to ceding an inch of the land of “ Palestine ,” the false claim that Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa mosque were in danger, ² opposition to normalization with Israel and the assertion that violence and terrorism (“resistance”) were the only way to “liberate Palestine .” At the same time, Hamas spokesmen claimed that the Palestinian delegation to Annapolis did not represent the Palestinian people and that it was not authorized to cede its “rights,” including the right to “resistance.” ³

9. After the Annapolis meeting Hamas spokesmen and media continued their hate propaganda campaign against Israel , the PA and the Annapolis process in general, using a more belligerent tone toward Abu Mazen . During the past few weeks there a significant effort has made itself felt to delegitimize Abu Mazen through a mud-slinging campaign against him and the prime minister of his government, Salam Fayyad. Both of them are portrayed as traitors and proxies of Israel . At the same time, there has been a call for a Hamas, Fatah and PA national reconciliation.

Anti-Semitic cartoons in the Hamas, Fatah and PA media

10. Both before and after the meeting, the hate propaganda against Israel and the Annapolis process was accompanied by clearly anti-Semitic motifs which did not distinguish between Israel and the Jewish people , and which had no relation to the specific context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The motifs appeared in cartoons which used anti-Semitic images and symbols and were disseminated through all the Palestinian media, whether affiliated with Hamas or those influenced by Abu Mazen's PA. Such anti-Semitic motifs commonly occur in the Palestinian, Arab and Islamic media (See Appendix II ).

11. Particularly prominent are vicious cartoons drawn by Hamas-affiliated Omaya Joha , a popular cartoonist whose work is widely reputed in the Arab world. Her cartoons are regularly published in the Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat Al Jadeeda , Hamas's Al-Risala and are posted on Internet sites throughout the Arab world.