By: Aryeh Savir
Jibril Rajoub, Secretary of Fatah’s Central Committee has repeated his libel that “Auschwitz is here, in every city in Palestine”.
Speaking on Kuwaiti TV earlier this month Rajoub said that “Auschwitz is here in every city in Palestine because of [Israel’s] systematic policy with barbaric and racist living conditions and conduct in order to cause physical and mental harm to these prisoners.”
The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which monitors incitement in the Palestinian Authority media, noted that Rajoub has voiced this libel before, including in February 2019, when, protesting a US-led conference in Warsaw to discuss peace and security in the Middle East, he stated that “in every city in Palestine, from Rafah to Jenin, there is an Israeli Auschwitz to massacre Palestinians.”
Responding to these latest comments by a senior PA official, PMW director Itamar Marcus said that “in Jibril Rajoub’s latest libel against Israel he is now incorporating desecration of the Holocaust.”
“Rajoub has openly supported terror and murder of Israelis, he has glorified terrorists and he uses racist and Antisemitic hate speech, and yet he travels freely around the world and is welcomed in foreign capitals as a Palestinian leader,” he charged, calling on the international community to “hold him accountable for his terror support and racism and not grant him a visa for entry beyond the borders of the PA.”
PMW has documented that a spokesman of Abbas’ Fatah Movement, Osama Al-Qawasmi, has made similar accusations, stating “no regime in history – not Hitler, not the Nazis, not fascism – has implemented what Israel is implementing against the Palestinians.”
Rajoub, who also serves as head of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA), received a humiliating blow earlier this week when a special panel rejected his appeal and upheld a verdict to suspend him for a year from attending FIFA events over his intimidation campaign against Argentina’s team before it was slated to play in Israel.
Rajoub in August 2018 was banned by FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) from attending football events for one year and was fined CHF 20,000 for incitement to violence against football star Lionel Messi and the Argentinian team which was slated to play a friendly match against the Israel team in Jerusalem.
The match was canceled after the Argentinean team announced it had canceled its trip to Israel at the last minute.
Rajoub played a big part in deterring the Argentineans from coming to play in Israel. He called upon Messi to boycott Israel and urged him not to “play a role in whitewashing the occupation.” He also threatened that if Messi would come to play in Israel, Arab fans would burn t-shirts and posters featuring his picture.
FIFA convicted Rajoub of breaching Article 53 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code for inciting hatred and violence. He was fined and suspended from all matches at any level for twelve months.
(TPS)
