Undaunted by the heavy blows its terrorist organization suffered during the recent Operation Guardian of the Walls, Hamas remains utterly determined to defeat the “Zionist entity,” as it terms Israel, and wipe the Jewish state off the map. If one of its motives for launching its recent barrages of missile attacks against Israel was to gain support on the Palestinian street, it most likely has succeeded. But that doesn’t mean that Fatah, aka the Palestinian Authority, should be considered as more moderate vis-à-vis Israel. Both organizations profess the identical ideology, although the means they choose to actualize it may differ.
This has been illustrated on many recent occasions, as revealed by Palestinian Media Watch, which translated a telling excerpt from official PA television, aired on May 18th, during the recent Gaza conflict.
Being interviewed was the deputy secretary of Fatah’s Shuafat and Beit Hanina branch (two neighborhoods in Jerusalem), Musa Al-Rajabi, who said:
“We are remaining here. Jerusalem will not agree to being divided in two. Jerusalem is ours. Jerusalem is Arab, Islamic, and Christian … We’ll protect Sheikh Jarrah as we’re protecting the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We’ll protect the Damascus Gate as we’re protecting the Lions’ Gate. We’ll rise up every day against this tyrannical occupation … We’ll continue to confront it … until the liberation of Palestine – Palestine from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, Palestine which is Arab and Islamic. It will remain ours.”
This is of course nothing new for Fatah, which reinforced its message of defiance in its Nakba logo for this year. The logo (see below) shows the PA’s map of Palestine, with the legend, “73 [years since] the Nakba,” Nakba being the Arabic term for the “catastrophe” of the founding of the State of Israel. Note that the map does not include any space for a Jewish state, within or without the much-vaunted “’67 Borders.” Furthermore, the upraised fist portrayed in the logo is holding a key, symbolic of the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to the homes they once held in Israel. To the right of the logo, the text reads: “Our resolve is the path to our return.”
These sentiments have been clarified in numerous statements by Fatah officials, such as this one dating back to February, 2020, taken from the Facebook page of Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi:
“Our Palestinian land is from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea. I dare any Palestinian … to reduce the Palestinian map to the West Bank and Gaza! He would not be able to walk one meter in the streets of our Palestinian cities among our people … the people that lives on land that is all holy and that is all Waqf land” – land that is defined as an Islamic trust which cannot be transferred into the control of the “infidel.”