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January 3, 1999 Special Dispatch No. 20

Anti-American Statements in the Palestinian Press

January 3, 1999
Palestinians | Special Dispatch No. 20

Despite the warming of relations between the US and the Palestinian Authority, and despite the warmth with which President Clinton was received during his visit to Gaza, the PA daily and the Palestinian press, in general, strongly condemned the attack on Iraq. Lately, some of the columnists even compared the Clinton Administration to Nazism.

The editor of Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Hafez Al-Barghuthi, attacked UNSCOM head Richard Battler, in an article titled "The Swindler Fox". Al-Barghuthi said that "Battler is the successor of Hitler and he invents false accusations in order to attack Iraq, and perpetuate the siege..."[1]

Columnist Kheiri Mansur wrote in an article entitled "Annihilation for the Sake of Salvation": "...According to Washington's publicly declared agenda, the salvation of Iraq and the democratization of its regime should be carried out via portions of poison that will thoroughly annihilate Iraq from the North to the South... Hitler and Mussolini, and more recently Pinochet, were no worse than the 'new emperors' [i.e. Clinton and Blair] in the murder of children and the destruction of ancient cultures. Therefore, the term 'Nazism', which used to denote a certain group of people with a specific ideology, has become a general term that is applicable in different frameworks and historical eras. Our generation that only recently destroyed the [original] Nazism witnesses the return of the [Nazi] era under different titles..."[2]

Columnist Musa Abu Karsh claims that just like "Jews and Israel cannot forgive Germans for the massacres and the suffering inflicted upon them by Nazism and Hitlerism," so the Palestinians cannot forgive Clinton for destroying Iraq, despite his positive visit to Gaza, because the Palestinians themselves "were burned by the fire of American airplanes."[3]

The Palestinian researcher and historian Ahmad Sudqi Al-Dujani compares the conduct of the Clinton administration toward the Palestinian to that of the American Forefathers toward the Native American. In an interview published by the PA daily. Al-Dujani claims that "the Wye Agreement expresses the view of 'settlement' common amongst Americans. The roots of this manner can be traced back to the attitude of the White European Protestants - the WASPS [Sic.] - and the way they treated the People of the American continent, named Indians. They stole their land step by step. A student of American history may notice that the same terms are reused in the current settlement process: 'Autonomy', 'self-rule', 'lands' without the definitive article 'the', 'lands under dispute', etc. It is also worth mentioning that the method of negotiating is similar. This is evident in the evasion from the fulfillment of agreements and the violation of the rights of the owners of the homeland that are named "locals' instead of "the people of the land."[4]

In a public letter to the spiritual leader of the Israeli Shas party, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, who allegedly criticized the Clinton administration is denounced by Columnist Atallah Abu Al-Subh by making strong Anti-American statements.

Abu Al-Subh writes to Rabbi Ovadia Yossef: "How did this criminal [i.e. Clinton] wrong you, by destroying Iraq, by turning the flesh of its children to coal, and by tearing the corpses of its women to pieces? Doesn't it serve you, Oh Ovadia? How did he wrong you by delivering his volcanoes and weapons to the Jew William Cohen and by acting with roguery, meanness and hatred through that Jewish scabies-inflicted scorpioness Albright and through eighty of his senior Jews who specialize in starting wars...

Tell me in the name of your god, what do you want from humanity? This question may sound naive, because the answer is well known. It appeared in your Protocols [of the Elders of Zion], and in the announcements of William Cohen and his wretched protégé, Toni Blair. The four hundred missiles that hit the livers of Iraqi children, the B-52 bombers, the shells and Tomahawk missiles, engraved the answer in the body parts of Iraqi youth...

Tyrant nations were destroyed even when they were relatively more powerful than [the Jews]... You too will be destroyed in the same manner and so will the stupid fornicator [i.e. Clinton] Indeed, Allah's help is near, and so you shall see…"[5]


[1] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida December 18, 1998

[2] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida December 31, 1998

[3] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, December 12, 1998

[4] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 4, 1999

[5] Al-Risala December 31, 1998

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