“Cold-Blooded Murder” or a War on Terror?
Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi
Jerusalem Issue Briefs Vol. 14, No. 18 June 9, 2014
http://jcpa.org/article/cold-blooded-murder-or-a-war-on-terror/
-Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, claims that all the
Palestinian “victims” since the beginning of the negotiations in August 2013
“were killed in cold blood” by Israel.
-A check of the names of those killed reveals a completely different picture
and refutes Erekat’s allegation.
-Almost all of those killed were combatants from radical and Islamic
terrorist groups, including Hamas. Hamas has never renounced its Covenant
and vows to destroy Israel.
Saeb Erekat, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, has blamed Israel1
for the failure of the diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinian
Authority, and among the reasons he gives are the “killings.” Erekat alleged
that Israel had “killed 66 Palestinians in cold blood,” implying that this
had occurred throughout the period of the negotiations up to the day he made
his statement.
B’Tselem’s website names 43 Palestinians who were killed by IDF forces in
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from August 2013 to the end of March 2014.
According to a check of Palestinian sources by this author, the casualty
list includes:
Eight operatives of the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad
Seven operatives of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the military wing of
Fatah
Six operatives of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas
Three operatives of Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen, which is ideologically
associated with Al-Qaeda
Two operatives of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
One operative of the Mujahideen Brigades
Five operatives of Fatah (opening fire, stabbing, disorderly conduct)
Two Hamas operatives (attempting to damage the Gaza border fence)
As for the nine who did not belong to an organization, three were killed as
they approached an IDF outpost at the Gaza border fence, three were shot
while taking part in violent disorders, one was killed after firing a pistol
at an IDF force, and one, a woman, was killed by return fire from the IDF at
a source of fire in Gaza.
Erekat’s rewriting of history, ignoring of Palestinian terror, and
presentation of all the Palestinian casualties as innocent victims are of
the same fabric as his description of Hamas as a legitimate political
organization and his assertion that it has never engaged, nor engages today,
in terrorist activity against Israel.
At an April 2014 conference in Ramallah on the “resistance strategy,” Erekat
said: “I declare before everyone, and this in the name of President Abu
Mazen and of the Executive Committee [of the PLO], that Hamas is a
Palestinian movement, and that it has not been and will not be a terrorist
organization.”2
Erekat reiterated the same message in an April 27 interview to the Israeli
news site Ynet, in which he said that “we [the Palestinian Authority] do not
regard Hamas as a terrorist organization,” and that in the Palestinian
Authority’s view “Hamas is a political organization.”3
In another interview to the Al-Shams radio station on May 8, Erekat said
that “Hamas is a political, not a terrorist movement.”4
* * *
Notes
1. http://www.wafa.ps/arabic/index.php?action=detail&id=175417
2. http://www.alquds.com/news/article/view/id/497742
3. http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4513537,00.html
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5EY559_K3g#t=1254
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About Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi
Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi is a senior researcher of the Middle East
and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He is a
co-founder of the Orient Research Group Ltd.
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