PA OFFICIALS 'UNDERSTAND' ARAB ATTACK ON BUS STATION, DON'T CALL IT TERROR
BY MICHAEL WIDLANSKI 28 August 2005

[Update 3 PM: Palestinian Authority Television announced in its afternoon
news show that the office of PA President Mahmoud Abbas had "condemned the
operation that took place today in Beersheba."

The terse statement did not call the "operation" an act of terror, and
it came more than six hours after the Palestinian terror attack. In
addition, unlike Dr. Abbas's frequent condemnations of Israel, the statement
was not read by Abbas himself and was not echoed by other PA officials. ]

Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and his leading lieutenants did not condemn
or criticize today's Palestinian terror attack Sunday morning in the Israeli
city of Beersheba which the Palestinians called "an explosive operation."

Some leading Palestinian Authority (PA) officials actually tried to
justify the attack that injured ten Israeli civilians aside from the
Palestinian Arab suicide bomber, who blew himself up just outside the
central bus station in Beersheba. A town with a large Arab population.

"Those who committed the massacre in Tulkarm had to expect some kind of
response," asserted General Jibril Rajoub, the National Security Advisor to
the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Dr. Abbas, according to Voice of
Palestine radio.

Rajoub was referring to Israel's killing of five armed members of the
Islamic Jihad terror organization in the West Bank town of Tulkarm last
week, but his remarks were not a departure from the PA policy set forth by
PLO Chairman Abbas and his prime minister Ahmad Qreia.

Both Dr. Abbas and Mr. Qreia have declined to condemn Palestinian
attacks on Israeli civilians in the last week, including rocket and mortar
attacks on the Israeli town of Sderot in the Negev area not far from today's
blast in Beersheba.

In a long interview broadcast Friday afternoon on Palestinian Authority
television, Abbas referred to Israeli actions as "irhaab"terror in
Arabic-while almost never using a negative term to describe any Arab attack.

Abbas, Qreia, General Rajoub and PA Interior Minister Nasser Youssef have
repeatedly defended the Islamic Jihad which has carried out terror attacks
in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Netanya in recent months, and the Palestinian
Authority has actually offered shelter and intelligence information to the
Jihad terrorists.

In the last two weeks since Israel has evicted about 8,000 of its own
citizens from the Gaza Strip, the rhetoric of senior PA officials is
almost indistinguishable from that of the leaders of Jihad and the even
larger Islamic terror group, HAMAS.

PA television and radio commercials echo the messages in the street
banners of Hamas and Jihad: "Gaza First," "Today Gaza, Tomorrow Jerusalem."

Children interviewed on PA television were asked what they thought of
the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and one child said: "We are returning to
Jaffa and to Haifa."

© 2005 Michael Widlanski Associates

[Material may be used with citation]

Dr. Michael Widlanski is a specialist in Arab politics and communication
whose doctorate dealt with the Palestinian broadcast media. He is a former
reporter, correspondent and editor, respectively, at The New York Times
,The Cox Newspapers-Atlanta Constitution, and The Jerusalem Post.