In a recent video posted by Fatah on its official Facebook page, the party of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas admitted that it supported Hamas “with money, weapons and political cover” during the era of PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
Fatah, the party claims in the video, “has led and will continue to lead the national project,” and was “the first to fight in the Second Intifada.”
The party goes on to brag of its accomplishments against “the Zionist enemy,” stating that “Fatah has sacrificed most of its leaders as martyrs,” and that “92 percent of prisoners [i.e., terrorists] are Fatah members, officers and fighters, foremost among them the heroic prisoner Marwan Barghouti.”
The video highlights Fatah’s central role in the Palestinian terror waves–the first intifada (1987-1991), in which 200 Israelis were murdered, and the second intifada (2000-05) in which more than 1,100 Israelis were murdered, mostly in suicide bombings.
According to Nan Jacques Zilberdik, senior analyst at media watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), Fatah’s open support of terrorism and Hamas is nothing new.
“While politically Fatah and Hamas are fierce enemies competing for political control,” she said, both support terrorism equally. “Abbas’s Fatah has stressed this in the past, referring to the terror organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad as its ‘brothers in arms’ who are united by ‘One God, one homeland, one enemy, and one goal.’ ”
Abbas himself, speaking on official P.A. TV in 2009, said: “There is no disagreement between us [Fatah and Hamas]. About belief? None! About policy? None! About resistance? None!”
