France claimed this month that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas had condemned the invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023 by Hamas, the Iran-backed terrorist group. During the attack, Hamas terrorists and other Palestinians murdered 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, wounded thousands. They kidnapped another 251 people to the Gaza Strip, where 52 – dead and alive – remain in captivity.
Paris said in a statement that the purported condemnation was included in a letter Abbas sent to France on the eve of a United Nations conference in New York, scheduled for this month, to push for recognizing the establishment of a Palestinian state. The conference is to be co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.
In his letter, Abbas also reportedly called on Hamas to immediately release all Israeli hostages it had kidnapped on October 7, 2023. He also reportedly pledged to hold general elections and reform the Palestinian Authority.
The Élysée Palace did not provide details about Abbas's alleged condemnation of the worst massacre against Jews since the Holocaust. Notably, Abbas has refrained from denouncing the October 7 atrocities, although he has, on a number of occasions, denounced Hamas for giving Israel an excuse to attack the Gaza Strip.
It is no secret that Abbas despises Hamas, especially after the terror group staged a violent coup against his PA and seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. During the coup, Hamas brutally killed hundreds of Abbas loyalists, some of whom were reportedly thrown to their death from rooftops of high buildings in the Gaza Strip.
So, Abbas is apparently critical of Hamas not because its men murdered, raped, beheaded, and burned alive many Israelis and others on October 7. Rather, he is furious with the terror group because its attack on Israel triggered an Israeli response that has brought death and destruction on the two million residents of the Gaza Strip. In a recent speech in Arabic, the 89-year-old Abbas went as far as describing Hamas as "sons of dogs" and called for the release of the hostages in order not to give Israel an excuse to continue its military operations in the Gaza Strip. In all his speeches in Arabic since October 7, 2023, Abbas has very carefully avoided condemning the attack and the murder of a large number of Israelis and foreign nationals..
Abbas has actually never come forward to tell his people that murdering men, women, children and the elderly is wrong and reprehensible. Why? Because the victims are Israelis. Abbas has never said that kidnapping and murdering an Israeli mother and her two small children is an act of terrorism. He has never reached out to the families of the victims to offer condolences. This, despite the fact that several Israelis who were murdered by Hamas terrorists were known as peace activists who supported the Palestinians and had volunteered to drive many of them from the Gaza Strip to Israeli hospitals.
Unsurprisingly, Abbas's letter to France did not appear as a news item in the PA's official media outlets.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa, which regularly reports on Abbas's meetings, statements, and diplomatic events, also did not report about the letter, including Abbas's alleged condemnation of the October 7 massacres against Israel.
This means that the letter (and the purported condemnation) was intended for only Western ears. If Abbas actually did condemn October 7 in his letter, he did so only to appease France and encourage it to recognize a Palestinian state. The Palestinian public knows absolutely nothing about the letter or the supposed "condemnation."
Abbas has good reason not to publicly condemn October 7. Public opinion polls published by a Palestinian research center during the past 20 months have shown that a majority of Palestinians support the Hamas attack on Israel and view it as "correct." The polls, in addition, have found that at least 40% of the Palestinians support Hamas. Abbas may be correct to assume that if he condemns the murder of Jews, his people will accuse him of being a "traitor."
If France really wanted a condemnation of the October 7 atrocities, they should have asked Abbas to issue a statement in Arabic to his own people, and not send a letter (in French) to French President Emmanuel Macron. Such a statement should have been issued by Abbas's office in Ramallah, not the Élysée Palace in Paris.
Macron and his government are clearly trying to use this questionable letter to justify their sudden rush to recognize a Palestinian state.
They are apparently trying to show the world that Abbas deserves a Palestinian state because he has purportedly "condemned" the Hamas-led massacres. This is the same Abbas, however, who still pays salaries to families of convicted terrorists who murder Jews, and who consistently glorifies terrorists by calling them heroes and martyrs.
The French President is undoubtedly aware of Abbas's support for terrorism and refusal to condemn (in Arabic) the October 7 massacres. It is hard to believe that Macron & Co. are being duped by the Palestinian leader. Macron most likely does not care: like many European leaders, he wants to create a Palestinian terror state that would pose an existential threat to Israel and pave the way for more massacres of Jews. France and the European Union are actually planning to reward the Islamist jihadists who slaughtered hundreds of Jews by giving them a terrorist state funded and armed by Iran's mullahs.
This conference, to recognize a genocidal terrorist state, is evidently Macron's way of appeasing the Muslim jihadists who are now rioting on the streets of French cities. The same holds true for other European leaders: they are willing to sacrifice Jews to placate their Muslim communities.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. His work is made possible through the generous donation of a couple of donors who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.
