In his Oct. 20 Oval Office address to the nation, U.S. President Joe Biden said, "Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people," a statement he has frequently repeated.
Really, Mr. President?
If this is true, why has Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Palestinian governing body in Judea and Samaria (aka West Bank), refused to call any elections for the PA or the presidency since 2006?
Abbas understands why.
He knows that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza would replace him with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror organization.
In the last election for their legislature in 2006, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza voted to give Hamas majority control.
Abbas suspended the election results and Hamas fighters seized control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas, creating a terror state.
There has not been a Palestinian election for the legislature or the presidency since then.
Abbas is in his 19th year of a four-year term.
In 2014, acknowledging the popularity of Hamas, Abbas said, "Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian people."
Poll after poll reveal that an overwhelming number of Palestinians support terrorism against Israel with the hope of eradicating the Jewish state and its Jewish population.
According to a September 2023 Palestine Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) poll, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would roundly defeat Mahmoud Abbas in a head-to-head race for the presidency.
A majority of Palestinians support Hamas's "armed struggle" (terrorism) against Israel and 67% oppose a two-state solution.
A June poll revealed that 71% of Palestinians support Hamas-affiliated terror groups located in the West Bank. A majority see terrorist groups and the murder of Jews — not the construction of schools and hospitals — as their proudest accomplishment over the past seven decades.
If Hamas doesn’t represent the Palestinians, why hasn’t the Palestinian president, the supposed "moderate," condemned the Oct. 7 Hamas atrocities?
Instead, he issued a statement of solidarity with the Hamas butchers.
His political party, Fatah, just called for the extermination of all Jews: "Strike the sons of apes and pigs. . . slaughter everyone who is Israeli."
In the days after the Oct. 7 massacre, Abbas’s Ministry of Religious Affairs instructed mosque preachers to include in their sermons a quote attributed to Islam’s prophet Muhammad that teaches that the Redemption of humanity is contingent on Muslims killing and eventually exterminating all Jews, the very same quote included in the Hamas Charter.
Mr. President, do we believe you or the truth?
In the days since the Oct. 7 massacre, there have been dozens of large West Bank pro-Hamas demonstrations calling Jews "human waste" and glorifying the butchery of Jews.
Why did a mob of about 1500 hundred ordinary Palestinian civilians from Gaza spontaneously join in the Hamas slaughter, desecrating dead bodies, raping, looting and hostage-taking as documented in videos and eyewitness accounts?
Gadi Yarkoni, resident of Kibbutz Nirim, reported, "It was not only Hamas. . . . It was the residents of Gaza, including people who worked in our kibbutzim (communities)."
In fact, some of the 20,000 Gazans permitted to work daily in Israel were Hamas spies, collecting detailed information about the Israeli communities and military facilities near Gaza. Gazan residents, many hundreds of them, danced around terrified abducted children and other Israeli civilian hostages, spitting and hitting them, screaming "Death to the Jews." Hamas videoed this despicable behavior.
Why is it, Mr. President, that Palestinians and their supporters abroad have not condemned the worst single-day murder of Jews since the Holocaust?
Instead, the Palestinian diaspora and their fellow travelers in the U.S. and Europe celebrate the carnage.
On American college campuses, in New York City’s Times Square, in Berlin, Germany and Sydney, Australia, they scream "Death to the Jews" and "gas the Jews," displaying swastikas and signs claiming Jews got what they deserve.
At the University of North Carolina, Palestinian students and their supporters chanted, "Palestine is Hamas, Hamas is Palestine."
Why, when Democratic Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., was asked repeatedly if she supports Hamas, she remained silent instead of answering with a resounding "Of course not."
President Biden was correct when he spoke of Hamas on Oct. 20: "Hamas — its stated purpose for existing is the destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people."
However, his comment, "Hamas doesn’t represent the Palestinian people" is a dangerous and blatant lie.
The Biden administration is engaging in self-deception, refusing to recognize the reality of a Palestinian population radicalized by decades of brainwashing and incitement against Israel and Jews in mosques, the media, in schools, on university campuses, in sports and summer camps.
National Review editor Andrew McCarthy describes Biden’s self-deception, "There are these nice Palestinians who just want 'self-determination' and the 'dignity' of governing themselves democratically, but they keep being undermined by a handful of bad terrorists — about whom we really can’t do much, so we need to pretend that the problem is those pain-in-the-a** Jews who stubbornly insist on existing."
Ziva Dahl is a senior fellow with the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center. Ziva writes and lectures about U.S.-Israel relations, U.S. foreign policy, Israel, Zionism, Antisemitism and BDS on college campuses. Her articles have appeared in such publications as The Hill, New York Daily News, New York Observer, The Washington Times, American Spectator, American Thinker and Jerusalem Post. Read Ziva Dahl's Reports — More Here.
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