How Americans, Europeans Embolden Palestinian Terrorism

By Bassam Tawil, GATESTONE  •  October 27, 2022

Pictured: Members of the Palestinian Lions’ Den terrorist group at a funeral in the city of Nablus on October 23, 2022. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)

The silence of the Americans and Europeans toward the actions and rhetoric of the Palestinian leaders is tantamount to a green light to the Lions’ Den and other terrorists to continue their terrorist attacks. If the Biden administration and the Europeans believe that Abbas or any other Palestinian leader is going to stop a terrorist from murdering Jews, they are engaging in staggering self-deception.

• Instead of assuming its responsibility for halting terrorist attacks from areas under its control, the Palestinians continue to violate the agreements they signed with Israel.

• In the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority did not take real measures to stop Hamas from building a massive terrorism infrastructure. Hamas later used its weapons arsenal not only to attack Israel, but also to overthrow the PA regime and seize full control of the Gaza Strip.
• The same scenario is now being repeated in the West Bank, specifically in areas controlled by Mahmoud Abbas’s security forces.
• This is the twisted logic of the Palestinian leadership: Instead of denouncing the terrorists for targeting Israelis, as they have officially and repeatedly committed to doing, they lash out at Israel for defending itself against the current wave of terrorism.
• When a senior Palestinian official such as Habbash says that the terrorists are entitled to carry out “resistance” attacks, he is actually telling them to continue targeting Israelis. Such statements are not only a violation of the agreements the Palestinians signed with Israel, but also incitement to launch more terrorist attacks against Israelis.
• The Palestinian leadership, in a policy is known as “pay-for-slay,” already provides monthly stipends to Palestinian terrorists….. The families of the Nablus terrorists will also presumably benefit from these payments.
• The Palestinian leadership’s endorsement and glorification of terrorism comes as no surprise. What is surprising – and intensely disturbing – is that those foreign governments that are providing financial and political aid to the Palestinian Authority, especially the Americans and the Europeans, are not calling out Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership for their public support of terrorism and their ongoing breach of the agreements they voluntarily signed with Israel.
• “We will not resort to weapons, we will not resort to violence,” Abbas declared in his last speech before the United Nations General Assembly, “we will not resort to terrorism, we will fight terrorism.” His words were directed to the international community, not to his own people.
• The silence of the Americans and Europeans toward the actions and rhetoric of the Palestinian leaders is tantamount to a green light to the Lions’ Den and other terrorists to continue their terrorist attacks.
• If the Biden administration and the Europeans believe that Abbas or any other Palestinian leader is going to stop a terrorist from murdering Jews, they are engaging in staggering self-deception.

The Lions’ Den is a new terrorist group based in the West Bank city of Nablus, which is controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA). The group consists of dozens of gunmen affiliated with a number of Palestinian factions, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the ruling Fatah party headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

The PA, which has hundreds of security officers in Nablus, has failed to take any measures to rein in the Lions’ Den terrorists, who have claimed responsibility for a series of shooting attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians in the Nablus area over the past few weeks.

Instead of assuming its responsibility for halting terrorist attacks from areas under its control, the Palestinians continue to violate the agreements they signed with Israel.

Article XV of the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip states:

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