Israel is growing concerned about the support from Iran to Palestinian terrorists, but it turns out it’s not just the traditional Palestinian terror groups that see Iran helping them while calling for the State of Israel to be destroyed. The supposedly moderated Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has said that as well.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in comments released by his office on Sunday that in recent weeks they have seen “a stepped-up Iranian effort to intensify terrorist actions in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank],” the homebase for the PLO, which is led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. As troubling as Iranian-sponsored terror is in the heart of Israel, Netanyahu noted that it comes after the Palestinian ambassador to Tehran called Israel a cancer that needs to be “annihilated.”
In October, PLO Ambassador to Tehran Salah al-Zawawi was quoted by the Iranian Fars News Agency as calling the arming of Judea and Samaria a “high priority.” Iran has already helped arm Gaza, where Hamas has ruled since 2007, and which in turn has engaged Israel in three wars in less than five years.
But the ambassador went further and stated that Israel—referring to them as the Zionist regime—was destined to be destroyed.
“The Zionist regime is an aggressor and a cancerous tumor which should be annihilated sooner or later,” said Zawawi to Fars.
Netanyahu, in his comments this week, highlighted that it was not a Hamas official who said this of Israel, but an official under the authority of Abbas, whose government has received hundreds of millions of dollars in support from the US and Europe. Abbas is also spearheading efforts at the United Nations to force Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria and turn it over to the Palestinians with or without an agreed-upon peace deal.
Netanyahu noted the inconsistency at the UN in supporting the PA, whose official has so recently called for Israel to be wiped out.
Said the Israeli leader, “Now what is the UN doing in response? Instead of dealing with this incitement they are giving it an honored place… and they are also moving forward on a unilateral Palestinian proposal to try and pass a decision in the Security Council, the purpose of which is to bring about a forced settlement that would establish here a second Hamastan and would endanger our security.”
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, December 28, 2014)