World Jewish News

Ron Dermer (photo by 4.bp.blogspot.com)

Israel to White House: Stop anti-Israel Palestinian incitement

The Prime Minister's Office issued a complaint to the White House several days ago lamenting ongoing incitement against Israel by Palestinian leaders.

In the complaint, senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office urged their American counterparts to demand that Palestinians President Mahmoud Abbas cease to glorify the memory of terrorists who murdered Israelis. The complaint went on to insist that the Palestinians live alongside Israelis peacefully and spread peace.

This complaint is the first of its kind against Palestinian incitement to gain media attention in Israel, after many years during which Israel largely refrained from making official complaints, or delivered these complaints discreetly to the Palestinian president.

Until one year ago, a special committee operated in Israel under the guidelines of the Annapolis peace summit to promote peace education and prevention of incitement. The committee was disbanded when Israeli-Palestinian peace talks broke down shortly before the 2009 elections in Israel.

The complaint was drafted by the prime minister's political adviser, Ron Dermer, who complained of three specific incidents which he described as severe defiance of Israel. The first incident was a recent ceremony in Ramallah, at which Abbas inaugurated a town square named in honor of Dalal Mougrabi, a female terrorist responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis aboard a bus in 1978.

The second issue Dermer complained about was the fact that the Palestinian Authority failed to condemn the most recent terror attack in which Israeli settler Meir Chai was killed in a drive-by shooting in the West Bank two weeks ago by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades operatives, the armed wing of Abbas' Fatah party. Dermer stressed that the Palestinian Authority habitually refrains from condemning attacks that occur outside the Green Line and those in which settlers are killed.

Dermer further complained that senior officials within the Palestinian Authority visited the homes of those who carried out the attack that killed Chai, who were later killed by the Israel Defense Forces, and deemed them Shahids, or martyrs. "This is glorification of killers," Dermer argued.

He also lamented a recent Fatah Website posting containing anti-Israel slogans.

Haaretz