An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
The Palestinian Authority (PA)’s lies have launched a worldwide phenomenon of denial of the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas.
The PA started this false narrative immediately after October 7, even though Hamas had proudly filmed its actions for the whole world to witness. Since then, the PA’s messaging has become progressively more extreme in its denial of the accusations, appropriation of victimhood, and libel of Israel as having made up the whole story. It has thus set the tone and talking points for Israel haters around the world.
These have been the components of the PA’s lie and libel:
PA denies evidence and accuses Israel of lying
The PA’s first step in its October 7 denial was to claim that there was “no evidence” and that Israel lied.
Palestinian reporter on Israeli affairs Ahed Farwaneh: “Israel achieved international support, and mainly American [support], through lies, because a number of the American channels reported on [Hamas] slaughtering Israeli children … At the start, these statements led to great support for the occupation state, especially in the US and the Western states, and we saw that even the European Union pressured the PA and attempted to stop the aid, but after the truth was revealed and it became clear that there is no evidence of what they (i.e., Israel) spoke about, and after the great damage that they inflicted on our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the picture began to slowly turn upside down.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Oct. 16, 2023]
PLO Executive Committee member and PLF Secretary-General Wasel Abu Yusuf: “Since Oct. 7, there has been a Zionist narrative that [Israel] has attempted to spread worldwide out of tendentious propaganda, [claiming] that there was murder of children, rape of women, crimes, and the like.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Dec. 3, 2023]
PA libels Israel as a fabricator of evidence
The PA’s next step was to accuse Israel of “fabricating pictures and video clips”:
Official PA TV reporter: “From the first day of the [Israeli] attack, some Western media outlets deliberately took action to side with Israel and adopt the occupation’s narrative by broadcasting fabricated pictures and video clips, which tell stories and tales spun from the imagination that there are Israeli babies who were beheaded, and others about cases of rape and burning among captured women.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Oct. 31, 2023]
Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor: “They [the Israelis] have spread lies, falsehoods, and fabrications regarding what happened on Oct. 7, and therefore the world turned against the Palestinians.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Dec. 5, 2023]
PA appropriates Israeli victimhood and says Israel committed the massacre
The PA then moved to libeling Israel as being the one to commit the massacre so that Israel could justify its war in Gaza.
Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs with the rank of minister Qadura Fares: “This whole [Israeli] outcry and this whole campaign against the Palestinian people is based on a lie, which it took Israel 24 hours to create and formulate properly.
They killed their [own] civilians [on Oct. 7], and they committed all these crimes and burned the bodies and they made up this story and said: ‘They [the Palestinians] raped, killed, and burned.’ … However, this narrative fell apart quickly… Israel’s lie is no longer tripping anyone up.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Nov. 20, 2023]
PA turns Israeli victims into “happy hostages”
The next step was to claim that the Israeli hostages, many of whose families were either partially or entirely wiped out, received “generous treatment” and left captivity “happy and laughing”:
Head of Radio and TV Department at Cairo University’s Faculty of Mass Communications Ashraf Jalal: “The generous treatment Palestine gave the Israeli prisoners caused an enormous positive response because after [the Israelis] lied and said that [Hamas] is abusing them, the [Israeli] people left [Gaza] happy and laughing … What is required is that we redirect the media spotlight to this issue.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, From Cairo, Feb. 12, 2024]
Result: Widespread Palestinian Oct. 7 denial
Consequently, when Palestinians were polled about whether they believed that Hamas committed atrocities on October 7, they were in complete denial as well. Only 9% of them think that Hamas committed war crimes, according to a poll by PSR.
In turn, the PA lies are now being echoed by Israel-haters worldwide, who adopt, embrace, and disseminate them so the uninformed public will deny the Palestinian atrocities as well. The Washington Post published an article on January 21, 2024, describing this phenomenon
. A prominent recent example is Roger Waters, who on Piers Morgan Uncensored eagerly parroted the PA’s claims that Palestinian terrorists did not rape Israeli women:
Roger Waters: “And wouldn’t it be great if we could have an actual real investigation…debunking all the filthy, disgusting lies that the Israelis told after October the 7th…about burning babies and women being raped which were all completely…”
Piers Morgan: “Actually, women were raped.”
Waters: “No they weren’t!”
Piers Morgan: “Yes, they were.”
Waters: “Well, there’s no evidence! You can say anything you want, but there’s no evidence. There is no evidence!”
[Piers Morgan Uncensored, July 2, 2024]
Palestinian Media Watch has reported extensively on how the Palestinian Authority consciously and maliciously attempts to rewrite ancient history. Now, we are seeing the PA’s rewriting of history as it is occurring.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is PMW’s Founder and Director. A version of this article originally appeared at PMW.
The post How the Palestinian Authority Denied the October 7 Massacre first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
