Karin Kneissl, Austria’s foreign minister, is taking heat from the country’s Jewish community for hosting notorious Palestinian extremist Hanan Ashrawi and dubbing her the “Palestinians’ voice of reason.”
On New Year’s Day, Kneissl took to Twitter to express her “sincere pleasure” in welcoming “the Palestinians’ voice of reason,” Ashrawi — and her husband Emile — to Vienna’s New Year’s concert performed by the Vienna Philharmonic.
Ashrawi wasted no time in using her Vienna trip to smear Israel as a “rogue state” that “enslave[s]” Palestinians during an interview with an Austrian radio station.
Ashrawi further lamented Austria’s record of not always siding with the Palestinians at the United Nations. “One thing I am concerned about is Austria’s voting record at the United Nations,” Ashrawi told the Austrian radio interviewer. “I hope that Austria won’t vote with Israel there. For us, Israel is in many respects a rogue state. It continues to violate international humanitarian law. Whoever votes for Israel votes for violations of global humanitarian rights.”
On his Facebook page, Oskar Deutsch, leader of Austria’s Jewish community, asked, “Why does one have to give such a platform to a hater of Israel? Hanan Ashrawi used her invitation to Vienna to once again demonize Israel.”
“In Israel, every person enjoys equal rights. Muslims, Christians, Jews, atheists and others have the right to elect parliamentarians, judges, and so on,” Deutsch wrote. “Standing for European values would mean not to invite Israel haters such as Hanan Ashrawi to the New Year’s concert.”
Ashrawi, a political leader of the violent First Palestinian Intifada and longtime member of the PLO Executive Committee, served as deputy to late PLO leader and arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat. She is known for espousing anti-Israel conspiracy theories and attempting to justify Palestinian “resistance” against the Jewish state.
Ashrawi is founder of the anti-Israel activist group Miftah. NGO Monitor, a watchdog on extremist nonprofits, notes that Mifta has accused Israel of committing “massacres,” “apartheid,” “summary executions” of Palestinian youth and “Judaizing” Jerusalem. It has also accused Israel of “ethnic-cleansing of Palestinian-Israeli Arabs.”
In a 2001 speech to the World Conference Against Racism, Ashrawi referred to the creation of Israel as a “Nakba” or “catastrophe.”
At the height of the deadly Palestinian intifada campaign of suicide bombings and shootings, Ashrawi wrote the following in October 2001 of the carnage: “I see it as an expression of the will to resist, of the spirit of a people that will not succumb to coercion and subjugation. … Popular protests and acts of resistance — political, human resistance — are necessary to demonstrate the people’s will.”
The term “resistance” is usually used by the Palestinians as a euphemism for deadly terrorist attacks targeting Israelis.
Ashrawi participated in the political leadership of the First Palestinian Intifada, which started in 1987. She served on the Intifada Political Committee until 1993.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
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