The PLO's Saeb Erekat has used Easter to send an anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, hateful political message under the guise of "love."
Palestine is the land of prophets and saints and Jerusalem represents the heart of all of them. For those marking Easter, it represents a message of hope where life defeats death. This message of hope was spread to the world from Jerusalem. The three monotheistic religions share a message of love, hope, and coexistence. The use of religion, holy books, and religious arguments to justify hatred, violations and war crimes goes against the tradition enshrined in the values of those religions. The Holy Bible, that teaches love, has been used by the Israeli and US officials to justify oppression against the land and the people of Palestine, and ultimately, to advocate the illegal annexation of our country. Those who believe in humanity and particularly those who celebrate the message of love and hope arising from Easter cannot but denounce such acts.Really? Where was Erekat's denunciation of the statement by Naim Ateek, president of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, when he said in his Easter message - during a wave of deadly terror bombings against Jews in 2001:
As we approach Holy Week and Easter, the suffering of Jesus Christ at the hands of evil political and religious powers two thousand years ago is lived out again in Palestine. The number of innocent Palestinians and Israelis that have fallen victim to Israeli state policy is increasing.This is what "the use of religion, holy books, and religious arguments to justify hatred, violations and war crimes" looks like. This is thinly veiled incitement to kill Jews to avenge the death of Jesus. This is pure Christian antisemitism from mainstream Palestinian Christians - and neither Saeb Erekat nor the PLO ever said a word. In fact, only a year after this antisemitic message, a PLO official paid tribute to Sabeel.
Here in Palestine Jesus is again walking the via dolorosa. Jesus is the powerless Palestinian humiliated at a checkpoint, the woman trying to get through to the hospital for treatment, the young man whose dignity is trampled, the young student who cannot get to the university to study, the unemployed father who needs to find bread to feed his family; the list is tragically getting longer, and Jesus is there in their midst suffering with them. ...
In this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him. It only takes people of insight to see the hundreds of thousands of crosses throughout the land, Palestinian men, women, and children being crucified. Palestine has become one huge golgotha. The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily. Palestine has become the place of the skull.
And this is just Christian Palestinian antisemitism. Do we even have to discuss the Muslim antisemitism, including from the PLO itself? Of Mahmoud Abbas invoking the libels of Jews poisoning wells?
Or of a Jerusalem cleric saying, a mere two months ago, that "Animosity towards the Jews is an obligatory religious duty, and one of the signs of the believers. Whoever does not show enmity towards the Jews is a total hypocrite"?
Or of Mahmoud Habbash, advisor to Abbas, last year calling Jews in Israel "foreigners who never had any religious or historical connection to this land and who would be told that this was the land of their forefathers"? While Erekat carefully says in English that the land is holy to Jews, the Palestinian Authority's top Sharia judge says the opposite in Arabic. Who is telling the truth? It sure isn't Erekat.
While Abbas walked back his "rabbis poisoning wells" statement when it hit the Western media, none of these were ever denounced or condemned by Saeb Erekat or the PLO. But now they suddenly pretend to care about people using religion to justify violence.
Spare us, Saeb. There is nothing that you don't politicize to incite hate against Israel and Jews, including Easter Sunday itself.