Following U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement last week that the United States no longer views Israeli settlements in the West Bank as being necessarily inconsistent with international law, Palestinian leaders called on their people to take to the streets for a “Day of Rage” on Tuesday against what they called the “Zionist-American plots.”
Fatah official Jamal Muhaisen announced that the Day of Rage activities were part of “a comprehensive program of struggle” against the “occupation’s crimes” that would continue even to the point of a new “intifada,” or popular Palestinian uprising, official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported on Monday.
As reported by media watchdog Palestinian Media Watch last week, Muhaisen recently said on official P.A. television that Palestinians “benefit from” terrorism against Israel and called for a return to a policy of “national resistance”—i.e. terror attacks.
“We must benefit from our Palestinian experience in what is connected to the First Intifada, and also benefit from the experience of the Tunnel Intifada and also from the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Every day [we face] the American Zionist attack against us. The cruel attack that harms the entire Palestinian national project demands of us—I am certainly talking about the popular resistance, national resistance,” said Muhaisen.
Al-Aloul has stated in the past that negotiations with Israel are effective only if conducted alongside a “resistance” campaign—a term used by the P.A. leadership to refer to everything from peaceful protest to terrorism.
Al-Aloul said that the Day of Rage was the start of a “permanent” program pairing the P.A. leadership’s “political activity” with the people’s “struggle against the occupation and its settlers.” This “struggle,” he said, was to take place “in all districts of the homeland,” i.e. throughout all of Israel.
The Fatah deputy chairman said the Israeli and American governments “have reached the point of murder,” comparing them to “gangs.”