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The Palestinian Authority has carried out Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map” and literally has done so by displaying maps of “Palestine” covering all of Israel at the same time its leaders talk about “two states for two people.”
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Fatah movement that controls the PA in Judea and Samaria, has in effect established a “one-state” solution in Fatah offices and in Palestinian Authority schools and offices.
The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has documented that professional unions and private PA groups display maps showing a rifle and a quill over “Palestine,” from the Lebanese border in the north to Eilat in the south and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.
The maps have been circulated at the same time Abbas campaigns for international recognition of the Palestinian Authority based on the borders of Israel as they existed between 1949 and 1967, during which time Jordan, which had been mandated by the United Nations to rule part of Judea and Samaria, took over and occupied the entire region, including large swaths of Jerusalem, after the War of Independence in 1948.
Jordan surrendered the areas in the Six-Day War in 1967, later relinquishing all claim to it, and Egypt and Syria did the same in Gaza and the Golan Heights respectively.
The maps declare Abbas’ intentions of making what is often termed the “1967 borders” (actually armistice lines that were never recognized) the temporary outline of a would-be Palestinian Authority country, even though – as PMW noted – U.S. President Barack Obama has criticized such maps as a security threat to Israel, in the same category as the threat from terrorist groups who want to destroy Israel.
"I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security,” he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in 2008. “Not when there are still voices that deny the Holocaust. Not when there are terrorist groups and political leaders committed to Israel's destruction. Not when there are maps across the Middle East that don't even acknowledge Israel's existence."
Nevertheless, the PA’s version “Palestine,” as illustrated on the map with a rifle and quill, was displayed last week at a meeting of the General Union of Palestinian Writers, PMW reported.
The Palestinian Authority has embedded in its school system the ”one-state” idea of a Palestine – without Israel – for years. As far back as 2003, school posters have displayed the Palestinian flag over a map erasing Israel.
The policy has continued unchanged despite statements by Abbas to President Obama that the PA has ceased anti-Israel incitement. Earlier this year, a map was hung in the principal’s office in a PA school which erased Israel and replaced it with "Palestine", with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flag flying over Israel.
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| [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 19, 2011] |
Professional unions and private organizations also display maps depicting all of Israel as "Palestine." At a meeting of the General Union of Palestinian Writers last week, the union's logo was on prominent display, showing a rifle and a quill over a map of the entire area of "Palestine" that replaced Israel.
President Barack Obama has criticized such maps as a security threat to Israel -- in the same category as the threat from terrorist groups who want to destroy Israel:
"I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security. Not when there are still voices that deny the Holocaust. Not when there are terrorist groups and political leaders committed to Israel's destruction. Not when there are maps across the Middle East that don't even acknowledge Israel's existence."
[AIPAC Conference, June 4, 2008]
See more examples of maps in PA schoolbooks, government ministries, and other public as well as private bodies whose logos replace all of Israel with "Palestine."
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A new Palestinian Authority TV program recognizes all of the Land of Israel – from Tel Aviv to the Negev – as "Palestine," belying PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ “recognition” of Israel.
The program was broadcast last week and was spotted and translated by Palestinian Media Watch. Abbas has stated in the past year that he recognizes the existence of the State of Israel but has steadfastly refused to identify it as a “Jewish” state.
However, the program on official PA television, geared for teenagers, defines all of Israel as Palestine, after the video is introduced with the headline, "Palestine: We will return one day to our home.”
The video shows views from the northern Galilee to the Negev, including metropolitan Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and concludes, "This [video] is our gift to Palestine and to all the Palestinians inside and outside, and throughout the world."
The video is not the first time that Abbas, head of the Fatah movement, and the Palestinian Authority, have provided anti-Israel material in Arabic while telling American and European audiences they seek co-existence with Israel.
PMW noted that at a recent Fatah event in the presence of Mahmoud Abbas and many other senior PA officials, an Arab performer sang "I am returning to ["Palestine"]," which was described in the song as including all of Israel.
The words of the song at the Fatah event, as translated by PMW, include, "We commit and promise to stand behind you, oh Mahmoud Abbas, until Judgment Day. I am returning to you… from Rafiah [in Gaza] to Rosh HaNikra (on the northeastern tip of Israel), north and south, are the picture's borders. From Haifa… to the [Jordan] valley (all of Israel). I am returning to you, the purest land, oh land of the free."
