Mahmoud Abbas's TV Says Israel Poisoned Gaza Wells

'Moderate' Palestinian authority revives medieval libels against Jews, says poison was used as 'war strategy'.

By Arutz Sheva

First Publish: 10/19/2014, 6:12 PM

Poison libel on PA TV

Screenshot

Two of the most destructive anti-Semitic blood libels of the Middle Ages have been brought back to life by the Palestinian Authority to promote hatred of Israelis, reports the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).

In July, the official PA daily wrote that Jews use the blood of Palestinian children as the ingredient in matzah – unleavened bread – for the holiday of Passover, as reported by PMW.

Last month, official PA TV revived another medieval libel reporting as news that Israel was intentionally "injecting poison" into Palestinian water sources as a "war strategy" during the recent Gaza war:

Official PA TV newsreader: "Water experts have warned of the consequences of the attack by the occupation [Israel] on water wells, as a result of its use of poisonous bombs that threaten public health..."
Official PA TV reporter: "The policy of attacking water wells is a war strategy used by the occupation in its aggression against Gaza. Not only were the people deprived of water, but poison was also injected into main [water] sources, destroying agriculture." [Official PA TV, Sept. 24, 2014]

Both these libels were used to promote hatred in the Middle Ages and led to the murder of many thousands of Jews. The non-Jewish populations felt that slaughtering Jews was justified because they believed that Jews posed an imminent threat of poisoning wells and killing non-Jewish children.

In July, Abbas' official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, wrote that Jews offer their God "sacrifices during Passover in the form of Matzah – unleavened bread – made from the blood of our children." This libel from the Middle Ages was used by the writer Yahya Rabah, who writes regularly for the official PA daily and is a member of the Fatah Leadership Committee in Gaza, as justification for aiming rockets at Israeli civilians during the recent Gaza war:
"We have nothing with which to speak to these Israeli murderers, who go too far with their crimes, and whose God, 'Yahweh', is called the Lord of Hosts and demands, according to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that they offer him sacrifices during Passover in the form of Matzah made from the blood of our children. We have nothing with which to open a dialogue but these rockets." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 12, 2014]

Yet a third classic Antisemitic libel was presented in Abbas' paper as "proof" of the Jews using blood for Matzah, namely that this practice is mentioned in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Protocols were written by the Russian secret police in order to promote hatred of Jews and presented in 1903 as an authentic Jewish document detailing an alleged Jewish plan to subjugate the world.
This libel was promoted successfully by many, including Hitler, prior to World War II.

The PA, as a policy, demonizes Jews and Israelis, and PMW has shown that it regularly presents The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as an authentic Jewish work.

In addition to the classic blood libels, PMW has documented a range of original PA libels disseminated by PA officials and official media that serve to demonize Jews and Israelis and disseminate hatred.

For unexplained reasons, Israel has not made negotiations with the PA conditional on a cessation of incitement. The Israeli government has, however, set up a body whose function is the monitoring of PA incitement, and has pointed at a direct connection between incitement and murderous terror acts carried out by PA residents.