Unmasking the Palestinian Authority

(JNS) — April 22, 2025, may be remembered as a turning point in the history of Israeli public diplomacy, and rightly so. On that day, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs harnessed the power of social media to expose the Palestinian Authority as the enemy it is.

From the official @Israel account on X, a powerful statement was posted: “The Palestinian Authority isn’t educating children, it’s indoctrinating them. Maps without Israel. Teachers praising martyrdom. Textbooks that glorify terror. As long as they teach hate, there’s no hope for peace. Stop ignoring it. Stop funding education that leads to terror.”

By directly attributing responsibility for the deeply rooted antisemitism prevalent in P.A.-controlled areas to Mahmoud Abbas and his co-conspirators, Israel took a vital step toward challenging the dangerous myth that a Palestinian state would lead to peace.

Prominent French public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy took to X and explained the tragedy that the so-called two-state solution would mean.

His post was quickly retweeted by @Israel. His message deserves to be quoted in full: “If there is a moment when the two states solution is not relevant, it is today! What do we want to tell? That we reward terrorism? That what could not be achieved through peace has been achieved with pogrom? That #Hamas has brought #Israel & the free world to its knees? Come on ….”

That these posts appeared during the week of Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, was no coincidence. More and more Israelis are acknowledging a painful reality: Whether they support Fatah or Hamas, Palestinians overwhelmingly agree that the Jewish state must be eliminated. Their only disagreements are over tactics, not goals.

What, beyond the P.A.’s institutionalized antisemitism, has prompted this new boldness from Israel on social media?

The reasons may never be fully known, but a series of alarming recent events likely played a role, many of which have gone underreported in Western media.

For example, on April 16, Wafa, the P.A.’s official news agency, marked “Palestinian Prisoners’ Day” by glorifying convicted terrorists. They accused Israel of “ongoing genocide” and “war crimes,” and in an Orwellian twist, referred to imprisoned Hamas operatives as “political prisoners.”

Then came French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement in April that France would recognize a Palestinian state in June, while Israel is still in the midst of fighting to rescue hostages and dismantle Hamas. This move can only be seen as a betrayal.

But is Israel right about the P.A.?

Following the viral tweets, 89-year-old Mahmoud Abbas appeared to signal his choice for an intended successor by appointing Hussein al-Sheikh as vice president of the PLO.

Al-Sheikh’s record speaks for itself. At a January 2023 event celebrating “Palestinian Martyrs’ Day,” he declared: “Even if we have one penny left, it will be spent on the families of the martyrs and prisoners. … They are our purest, most permanent, loftiest and most precious jewel.”

Such words make clear that terrorism is not merely tolerated by the P.A. but honored.

Fatah and Hamas are not ideological opposites; they are partners in terror. Fatah dominates both the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, and while tensions may exist between the two factions from time to time, they typically concern tactics, not the shared goal of Israel’s destruction.

This reality was underscored in July 2024, when Hamas and Fatah representatives met in Beijing, and agreed to form a unity government following the end of the Israel-Hamas war. They released a joint statement affirming their commitment to ongoing collaboration.

The unity pact signed in Beijing leaves no doubt about the true intentions of these two terrorist organizations.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry is right: The Palestinian leadership does not want peace. What they want is Israel’s defeat.

Moshe Phillips, a veteran pro-Israel activist and author, is the national chairman of Americans For a Safe Israel. A former board member of the American Zionist Movement, he previously served as national director of the U.S. division of Herut and worked with CAMERA in Philadelphia. He was also a delegate to the 2020 World Zionist Congress and served as editor of The Challenger, the publication of the Tagar Zionist Youth Movement. His op-eds and letters have been widely published in the United States and Israel.