Michael Widlanski: PALESTINIAN MEDIA TAKING STRONGER ANTI-U.S. AND
ANTI-ISRAEL TONE
Saturday, December 29, 2001

Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority attacked the United States and Israel
through its state-run media broadcasts several times this week in what seems
to be a hardening of the cautious "fence-riding" position adopted by Arafat'
s PA since the Islamic terror bombings in America in September.

The bold comments broadcast this week-including renewed calls for Islamic
martyrdom---seem to move Arafat away from the middle course he has been
trying to steer between the military power and diplomatic clout of America
and Britain, on the one hand, and the popularity of Osama Bin-Laden and
Islamic groups such as HAMAS and Islamic Jihad, on the other hand.

"America is of no value, and the Americans cannot even defend themselves,"
asserted Sheikh Youssef Abu-Sneina in a dramatic highpoint to his weekly
mosque speech broadcast on Palestinian state radio Friday from the Al Aqsa
Mosque in Jerusalem.

"When you realize that, then you realize that you have no choice but to
follow Allah," asserted the Islamic preacher in a half-hour speech that took
turns attacking America, Britain and Israel.

"Britain the criminal is the center of terror," declared Sheikh Abu-Sneina
at one point in the speech aired on the Voice of Palestine on Friday ( Dec.
28, 11:30 AM Jerusalem time).

The mosque preacher also warned against making arrangements with "the
infidel nations under the leadership of America," adding that "the Infidel
nations are trying to put pressure on the Palestinians to stop the
Intifada." Sheikh Abu-Sneina called on Palestinians to resist American
pressure.

"America is always using its right to cast a veto .against our Islamic
people," added Sheikh Abu-Sneina, who is a veteran and PA-vetted mosque
preacher or "Khatib" at the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

The Islamic preacher called for "all Islam and all Muslims to unite in
combat" against the enemies of Islam.

Sheikh Abu-Sneina's remarks were laced with calls for Islamic
martyrdom-sometimes a code-word for more suicide bombings-and with religious
references that the dead "shuhadaa"-martyrs in Arabic-would be rewarded with
eternal life in Paradise.

"The martyr never dies, and his blood bears testimony for him before God,
and he comes out of the grave," intoned Sheikh Abu-Sneina.

"His wounds spring blood which have the color of blood but have the smell of
perfume," he added.

"O servants of Allah, we live in difficult and bitter times," said the
mosque preacher who made several references that seemed to call for attacks
against America, Britain and particularly Israelis, whether living inside
the West Bank or Gaza or other parts of "occupied Palestine," as the sheikh
called Israel.

"O servants of Allah, our case (i.e.-the Palestinian case-MW) is
fundamentally different from other problems because it is a central Islamic
question," cried Sheikh Abu-Sneina, whose salary is paid by the Palestinian
Authority.

But Friday's mosque speech was only one of several instances of apparent
official Palestinian incitement to acts of violence.

"Today we will closely follow the continuation of the armed struggle,"
declared Nizar al-Ghul, opening up the Voice of Palestine's morning news
show on Wednesday (Dec. 26) following an attack on an Israeli patrol inside
Israeli territory in the Jordan Valley in which one Israeli reserve soldier
was killed and four wounded.

Throughout the day's news bulletins, the Voice of Palestine referred to the
two Arab attackers as "al-shahidayn"-the two martyrs.

Still earlier in the week, the PA's official newspaper, Al-Hayat al-Jadida,
accused Israel of taking body parts from the bodies of slain "martyrs" and
using the them for transplant operations to save the lives of ailing
Israelis.

But America as well as Israel was clearly being targeted as "conspiring"
against Arab interests.

"Nations of the world know that after Afghanistan, will come your turn,"
asserted Sheikh Abu-Sneina in his mosque sermon.

(C) 2001 Michael Widlanski, www.themedialine.org
(For fuller version of this and other articles, see the web site of The
Media Line.))