PMW: Fatah glorifies the second Intifada, promises more terror
Fatah's Bethlehem Branch glorified the Palestinian Authority's terror campaign (2000-2005) - the second Intifada, posting on Facebook the photo above with the text:The Real Arab Spring
"A souvenir picture from the Al-Aqsa Intifada The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades - Bethlehem."
[Facebook page of the Fatah Movement - Bethlehem Branch, Oct. 26, 2017]
Over 1,000 Israelis, of which the vast majority were civilians, were murdered during the PA terror campaign, mostly in suicide bombings by Hamas and Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades is considered a terror organization by the US and the EU. The image shows rows of masked men, apparently belonging to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, dressed in black clothes, wearing keffiyehs (Arab headdresses) and yellow Fatah headbands, and carrying various types of rifles.
Palestinian Media Watch has documented numerous times that Fatah continues to promote violence and refuses to lay down its weapons. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Mahmoud Abbas' Advisor Sultan Abu Al-Einein wrote: "The only way to freedom and liberation is resistance to the occupier... There is no honor for the weak
." [Facebook page of Mahmoud Abbas' Advisor to NGOs Sultan Abu Al-Einein, Nov. 2, 2017]
"Resistance" is in PA terminology often a euphemism for violence and terror.
Washington’s liberal foreign-policy establishment sees an ambitious would-be autocrat overreaching at home and abroad. But the Saudi leadership was never going to sit still in response to Tehran’s growing hegemony, a threat that was abetted by the Obama administration’s nuclear diplomacy and failure to check Iranian aggression across the geopolitical board. Feeling abandoned by Washington, and with their own system’s weaknesses bearing down on them, the Saudis were due for a big shakeup.Caroline Glick: Saudi purges and duty to act
MBS’s [Mohammed bin Salman] project makes sense against this backdrop. His reform vision is by no means democratic. But it is populist, nationalist, and shorn of illusions. Which is to say, it is deeply attuned to the needs of the Arabs today and the worldwide spirit of the age.
Start with populism. By targeting graft, MBS is vindicating average Saudis, who stewed as they watched the well-connected cash in on public money. By granting women the right to drive and loosening social restrictions that made the kingdom one of the worst places to be young, MBS is creating a constituency that is invested in his success. Saudis won’t shed tears for princes locked up in the Riyadh Ritz.
Then there is nationalism. By liberalizing the economy and seeking revenue beyond oil, MBS is shoring up the national foundations of Saudi power–crucial in the confrontation with Tehran. With oil prices depressed, Riyadh can no longer afford to run a colossal welfare state. Weaning Saudis off petro-entitlements is likely to foster a healthier, more accountable sense of belonging and citizenship than the kingdom has afforded citizens since its founding. More philosophically, MBS views the nation-state form as an enduring mechanism for confronting 21st-century challenges. MBS is thus one among a rising group of like-minded world leaders, including Narendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu, and, of course, Donald Trump.
Finally, MBS’s reform vision is realistic. As the likes of Bernard Lewis warned and subsequent events showed, Arab society isn’t configured to representative democracy as we in the West understand it. With the precious exception of Tunisia, Arab “democracy” has yielded Islamism, state failure, and civil war. Top-down change, driven by a popular figure like MBS, promises a less perilous path to reform and prosperity for the Saudis and their neighborhood. The U.S. should embrace this vision–and lend a hand.
There can be little doubt that there was coordination between the Saudi regime and the Trump administration regarding Saturday’s actions. The timing of the administration’s release last week of most of the files US special forces seized during their 2011 raid of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan was likely not a coincidence.
The files, which the Obama administration refused to release, make clear that Obama’s two chief pretensions – that al-Qaida was a spent force by the time US forces killed bin Laden, and that Iran was interested in moderating its behavior were both untrue. The documents showed that al-Qaida’s operations remained a significant worldwide threat to US interests.
And perhaps more significantly, they showed that Iran was al-Qaida’s chief state sponsor. Much of al-Qaida’s leadership, including bin Laden’s sons, operated from Iran. The notion – touted by Obama and his administration – that Shi’ite Iranians and Sunni terrorists from al-Qaida and other groups were incapable of cooperating was demonstrated to be an utter fiction by the documents.
Their publication now, as Saudi Arabia takes more determined steps to slash its support for radical Islamists, and separate itself from Wahhabist Islam, draws a clear distinction between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Given Saudi Arabia’s record, and the kingdom’s 70-year alliance with Wahhabist clerics, it is hard to know whether Mohammed’s move signals an irrevocable breach between the House of Saud and the Wahhabists.
But the direction is clear. With Hariri’s removal from Lebanon, the lines between the forces of jihad and terrorism led by Iran, and the forces that oppose them are clearer than ever before. And the necessity of acting against the former and helping the latter has similarly never been more obvious.