Palestinians: American 'Jewish Advisers' to blame for failure of talks, Hamas 'never a terror group'

Following last week’s unraveling of peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian delegations, Palestinian officials have unleashed statements sure to be seen as inflammatory and anti-Semitic.  

Speaking to the PA-based Safa news agency, Sufian Abu Zaida, a senior member of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, said, “All the members of the U.S. delegation to the negotiations are Jews, except for Kerry, and they seek to implement Israel’s goals.” 

It was not clear to whom in particular Abu Zaida was referring, though Martin Indyk, the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, who has served as President Barack Obama’s envoy to the peace talks, is Jewish. 

Meanwhile, reports Israel National News, the Palestinian Authority is again trying “unification” with terror group Hamas. As a sign of Fatah’s goodwill, Saeb Erekat, the PA’s top negotiator and a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, called on Hamas to implement all previous agreements with Fatah in order to “fight together against Israel.”

“I hereby declare, in the name of President Mahmoud Abbas and the directorate of Fatah, that Hamas is a Palestinian movement, and is not and never was a terror group,” Erekat added.

That statement by Erekat is sure to raise the ire of Israel. Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, has been implicated in dozens of terror attacks against Israelis. It is considered a terror group by America and numerous other countries.  

Hamas’s own charter declares its members to be Muslims who “fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors.” The charter states that “our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious” and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel. 

Hamas and Fatah have been at odds since 2007, when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, booting out Fatah, which retreated to Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of the West Bank.