The State Department's Report on Terrorism Should Be Discredited

by A. Z. Mohamed  •  August 2, 2017 at 4:30 am

• At the top of the list of supposed "continued drivers of violence" in the Palestinian Authority (PA) is an assertion even more fabricated: "a lack of hope in achieving Palestinian statehood..."
• It is not "lack of hope" that drives Palestinian violence. On the contrary, it is precisely the propping up of hope -- that intimidation and terrorism work and deliver concessions, such as UNESCO's fraudulent rulings that try to strip the Jews of their history, or Israel's recent removal of metal detectors and cameras from the Temple Mount -- that keeps the Palestinians on the offensive.
• The report's allegations are perceptibly false. The PA has absolute control over the content of school books, print and broadcast media pieces, and sermons in mosques, all of which are rife with blatant anti-Semitism and glorification of terrorism and terrorists. This means that the incitement to spill Jewish blood is approved by the PA leadership, when not directly planted by it.

In March 2106, West Point graduate and U.S. Army veteran Taylor Force, while visiting Israel, was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist. Since that time, the family of the terrorist who murdered Force receives a monthly salary from the Palestinian Authority Martyr's Fund. The amount is several times greater than the average Palestinian wage. (Image source: United States Military Academy)

A newly-released report on terrorism by the US State Department so completely distorts the situation in Israel and the Palestinian Authority -- the areas it refers to as "the West Bank and Gaza, and Jerusalem" -- that one can assume the rest of its findings are equally inaccurate.

To set the stage for its unfounded and biased claim that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been engaged in a serious effort to combat terrorism, the report equates "extremist" Palestinians, who "continued to conduct acts of violence and terrorism in the West Bank and Jerusalem," with "[e]xtremist Israelis, including settlers, [who] continued to conduct acts of violence as well as 'price tag' attacks (property crimes and violent acts by extremist Jewish individuals and groups in retaliation for activity they deemed anti-settlement) in the West Bank and Jerusalem."

Continue Reading Articlehttps://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10762/state-department-terrorism-report