An issue with the Israeli/Palestinian negotiations ignored by the United States and other international mediators is that the Palestinian Authority (PA) says it wants peace in English, but when speaking to its own people in Arabic, it preaches war and hatred. Last week, on the anniversary of Israel's creation, the official PA controlled newspaper wrote that sixty-six years ago, "The Zionist gangs invaded the land of Palestine and expelled its residents before the eyes and ears of the world - which didn't lift a finger - and specifically the powers at the time, which gave the Zionist gangs cover and eased their despicable mission."
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida is the official daily newspaper of the Palestinian Authority, which means the government controls the editorial direction. If the PA truly desired peace, it would be selling a two-state peace plan to their citizenry(on its terms, of course). Yet it continues to sell hatred and war:
On May 7th, Baha Rahal. a regular columnist for Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, wrote:
Sixty-six years ago, a monstrosity was born, which grew over the ruins of an entire people, which had been expelled from its land and homeland, and its name became Israel. This monstrosity has an army that defeated the armies of the region in six days or less, and it has a language whose letters were put together without patterns and without meaning, and which is abnormal, lacking rules or order. It has a flag with two stripes, and in the middle a stolen star...These days, pain is tearing the hearts of all Palestinians. Their pain is the same wherever they are - whether in their homeland, in the refugee camps in the diaspora in the neighboring countries, or in countries on all five continents, where they were scattered in the wake of the great Nakba ["catastrophe," the Palestinian term for the establishment of the State of Israel] which befell them unjustly and against their will.The Zionist gangs invaded the land of Palestine and expelled its residents before the eyes and ears of the world - which didn't lift a finger - and specifically the powers at the time, which gave the Zionist gangs cover and eased their despicable mission, and afforded them all means of assistance. This was a crime unprecedented in history... The Nakba befell our people 66 years ago, when the Zionist gangs were fighting each other to conquer Palestine, using the Balfour Declaration as a pretext, as if it were a divine promise, as if Balfour had the right to make the promise in the first place...The occupation of Palestine was the greatest crime known to humanity. Since that time, the Palestinian people has been confronting these gangs using all the means and methods at its disposal, to regain the stolen right, waiting for the long-awaited day, adhering to its right of return, and holding firm to its land and its homeland."