The Palestinian Authority (PA) should have been happy over the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas appears to have forgotten that Haniyeh represents a group that carried out a violent and brutal coup against his loyalists in the Gaza Strip back in 2007.
Instead, the PA and its leaders have been mourning the death of Haniyeh, who was killed during a visit to Tehran on July 31. They have, in addition, used the assassination to step up their incitement against Israel.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) reported in 2007 that at least 161 Palestinians were killed and more than 700 wounded during fighting between Hamas on one side and members of Abbas's security forces and Fatah faction on the other. According to the PCHR:
"[T]he two parties of the conflict perpetrated grave breaches of the provisions of international law concerning internal armed conflicts, especially common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. The fighting included: extra-judicial and willful killings of combatants who laid down their arms; killing a number of wounded persons inside hospitals; abduction and torture; using houses and apartment buildings in the fighting, endangering the lives of civilians; obstruction of access of medical and civil defense crews to areas of clashes."
In response to the 2007 coup, Abbas denounced Hamas leaders as "traitors" and called on the terrorist group to apologize for the fighting in the Gaza Strip. He accused Hamas of "killings and massacres," as well as being behind a plot to assassinate him during a visit to the Gaza Strip.
Abbas also seems to have forgotten the number of times Hamas leaders condemned him as a "traitor" for meeting with Israelis and purportedly expressing a desire to make peace with Israel. When Abbas attended the funeral of late Israeli President Shimon Peres in 2016, Hamas condemned the move as "a betrayal of Palestinian blood."
A year later, senior Hamas official Marwan Abu Ras described Abbas as "the biggest traitor in the history of the Palestinian cause" and called for executing him in a public square in the Gaza Strip.
For Abbas, Haniyeh and Hamas were not only political rivals, but ferocious enemies as well. In 2017, Abbas imposed a series of sanctions on Hamas, including refusal to pay for the electricity Israel supplies to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, as well as slashing funding for the coastal enclave and cutting salaries of thousands of PA employees.
Since the 2007 coup, Abbas has avoided setting foot in the Gaza Strip out of fear that Hamas would murder him. His aides have accused Hamas of plotting to assassinate him during the same year. They revealed that four large explosive devices were uncovered by Abbas's security officers on a road where his convoy was about to pass through the northern Gaza Strip. Upon discovering the devices, Abbas's security officers instructed him to return to Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians in the West Bank.
This same Abbas is now crying over the death of Haniyeh. Almost immediately after the news of the death of the Hamas leader broke, Abbas was quick to issue a statement "strongly condemning the cowardly assassination of the great leader Ismail Haniyeh." The statement was followed by another in which Abbas "declared a day of mourning in protest of the assassination" of Haniyeh. Abbas also ordered that "flags be flown at half-mast in official Palestinian institutions." As if that were not enough, Abbas late that day phoned Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to offer his condolences over the assassination of the "great national leader Ismail Haniyeh."
One of Abbas's top aides, Hussein al-Sheikh, also mourned the death of the Hamas leader:
"I called our brother [Hamas leader] Khaled Mashaal by phone and offered him warm condolences on the martyrdom of the head of the [Hamas] Political Bureau, the national leader Ismail Haniyeh, whose martyrdom constituted a great loss for the Palestinian people."
The Biden-Harris administration evidently considers both Abbas and al-Sheikh as legitimate leaders and partners for a future peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. For the past four years, Biden administration officials have been meeting with the two on a regular basis. On May 20, 2024, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with al-Sheikh and PA Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa, who has also been shedding tears over the killing of the "great" Hamas leader.
In addition to exposing the Palestinian Authority's duplicity, all this grieving over Haniyeh, its bitter adversary, should serve as a warning to the Biden-Harris administration and those who continue to talk about the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. They must be reminded that Haniyeh, who is being praised by Abbas and the PA as a "great leader," belongs to a group that has long been waging a Jihad (holy war) to murder Jews and destroy Israel – and that does not have the slightest intention of being "revitalized."
The Biden-Harris administration and other supporters of the "two-state solution" also need to be reminded that Haniyeh was the first Palestinian leader to celebrate the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the murder of 1,200 Israelis and the abduction of more than 240 others.
During the attack, Israelis and others were beheaded, raped, tortured, and burned alive. In a video broadcast by Al-Jazeera, the Qatari-owned mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood organization and its affiliate Hamas, Haniyeh is seen leading a prayer of thanks over the October 7 atrocities.
By hailing Haniyeh as a "great leader," Abbas and his PA cohorts are sending a message to all Palestinians that the murderous Hamas leader is their role model. It is no wonder, then, that thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of the PA-controlled areas of the West Bank, including Ramallah, to mourn the killing of Haniyeh and voice support for Hamas murderers and rapists. It is no wonder that Hamas remains extremely popular among the Palestinians.
It is obvious why Abbas has not condemned the October 7 massacres against Israelis: he respects the "great" leader of the murderers and rapists and has even observed a day of mourning for the killing of Haniyeh. If you are so fond of the slain Hamas mass-murderer, it shows that you support the atrocities of October 7.
Abbas and other Palestinian Authority leaders have once again demonstrated their preference to ally with Islamist terror groups such as Hamas rather than to secure a brighter future for their own people. Abbas and the PA have also once again served as a reminder that they share the same goal as Hamas: glorify terrorism and destroy Israel.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. The work of Bassam Tawil is made possible through the generous donation of a couple of donors who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.
Mark Harrison