Mohammad Shtayyeh said the P.A.’s ruling Fatah faction was still seeking to bring Hamas into the PLO.

By: Akiva Van Koningsveld & Amelie Botbol

Former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh last month praised the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of some 1,200 people as “courageous and unprecedented, ” according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“October 7 was a courageous and unprecedented operation, ” Shtayyeh said in the July 29 interview with a podcast by Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya broadcaster, per the MEMRI translation that was published on Sunday.

“It is an important crossroad in the history of the Palestinian struggle, ” the former official stated, while at the same time accusing Hamas of having “miscalculated” the repercussions for the residents of Gaza.

“Any adventure should take into consideration the consequences, because even if Hamas was prepared to protect its members in the tunnels, as brother [former Hamas chief Mousa] Abu Marzouk stated, it had taken no consideration for the [Gaza] citizens, ” Shtayyeh said.

However, following the Oct. 7 massacres, the Palestinian cause “has been taken out of the freezer and put into the oven–it is now hot and at the top of the world’s priorities, ” he exclaimed, claiming that the Jewish state has “lost its image as a victim, lost its status as the only democracy. … Israel stands accused as a criminal country before the international courts.”

Shtayyeh said the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah faction was still seeking an agreement to bring Hamas into the Palestine Liberation Organization.

“We want to reach an agreement about our goals, ” he said, asking: “Do we want a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders? Do we want to liberate all the land? Do we want a state ‘from the River to the Sea? ‘”

The Hamas Charter, which was issued in 1988 and remains in effect despite claims of it being replaced by a “political document” in 2017, urges the destruction of the Jewish state and the murder of all Jews.

Shtayyeh told the July 29 podcast: “United we go to peace, and united we go to war, under the banner of the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, which is the PLO.” He added that Hamas was “welcome” to change the PLO from within to align with its goals.

“We are not asking for anything from Hamas. We are not asking them to recognize Israel, ” he said. “All we are asking Hamas is to join the PLO.”

Asked about the insistence by some countries that the P.A. Will manage Gaza after the war with Hamas ends, Shtayyeh said: “We will not return to Gaza riding on Israeli tanks or in confrontation with Hamas, ” saying that the only solution is reaching “national consensus” with Hamas.

Shtayyeh served as the P.A.’s “prime minister” between 2019 and March 2024, when he was replaced by Mohammad Mustafa. During the war led by Hamas, Shtayyeh’s Fatah faction repeatedly sought to ink a unity agreement with the terrorist organization based in the Gaza Strip.

Likud Knesset member Dan Illouz told JNS on Monday, “Shtayyeh’s praise for the October 7 massacre–calling the slaughter of Jews ‘courageous’–rips the mask off the Palestinian Authority.

“This is the same P.A. That pays terrorists to murder Jews, teaches children to hate us from kindergarten, and now openly celebrates the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, ” he continued.

“And yet, the so-called ‘international community’ wants to reward them with a state. Giving statehood to the P.A. Is not peace, it’s handing a sovereign base to terror, ” Illouz said.

Religious Zionism Party lawmaker Moshe Solomon told JNS on Monday, “This doesn’t surprise me. We always say that the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas terrorist organization are the same thing. Both are enemies and want the destruction of the State of Israel.

“Therefore, we cannot abandon and hand over Gaza to them. We must fight until the end, until victory, until the last decisive battle, so that there will be no Hamas left in Gaza and the P.A. Will not take any ownership or responsibility the day after the war, ” he said.

On Sunday, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said that he would be asking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to propose “immediate operational steps” to collapse the Palestinian Authority.

“This should be the response to terrorist Abu Mazen’s fantasies about a ‘Palestinian state’–the crushing of the terrorist authority he heads, ” he announced, using P.A. Leader Mahmoud Abbas’s Arabic nickname.

Ben-Gvir was responding to a report by London-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed claiming that Abbas was thinking of renewing his effort to transform the P.A. Into a state at the United Nations in September.

Abbas, feeling strengthened by the announcements by the U.K, France and Canada that they would be recognizing “Palestine, ” was said to be planning to declare the unilateral move during the U.N. General Assembly’s annual general debate.

          (JNS.org)