The Palestinians and the October 7 Massacre

The barbarism of the October 7, 2023, massacre came as no surprise for anyone who actually listens to what the Palestinian leadership has been telling its population for decades.

For Israel, the Oslo Accords were yet another Jewish attempt to create peaceful co-existence between Jews and Arabs, in the Middle East in general, and between Jews and Arabs living to the west of the Jordan River in particular.

In stark contrast, for the Palestinian leaders, the accords were the embodiment of the Islamic principle of “Taqiyya,” or deceit. As Yasser Arafat himself declared soon after the signing of the accords, “This agreement, I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our Prophet Muhammad and Quraish, and you remember the Caliph Omar had refused this agreement and considered it ‘Sulha Dania’ [a despicable truce]. But Muhammad had accepted it and we are accepting now this [Oslo] peace accord.”¹

Feigning historic reconciliation, in the view of the Palestinian leadership, the Oslo Accords were nothing more than an opportunity to further the implementation of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s “Plan of Stages,”² to secure a solid territorial foothold from which the organization could continue to pursue the goal to destroy Israel.

Despite having committed to combat incitement and terror from its creation, the Palestinian Authority did the exact opposite. Israel, as the nation state of the Jewish people, is constantly delegitimized, not only in the international fora, but specifically in internal Palestinian messaging.³ Adopting medieval blood libels, together with Nazi propaganda, the PA demonized Jews (not just Israelis) and legitimized their murder. To further incite and promote terror, the PA adopted a multi-billion-dollar “Pay-for-Slay”⁴ policy under which it pays substantial financial rewards to every Palestinian who participates in terror.

Instead of arresting them for being terrorists, the PLO/PA leadership embraced Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), as legitimate “Palestinian factions.” As such, the terrorists were even permitted to participate in the last PA elections in 2006.

After the PLO-PA had fermented an environment of hatred and had consistently promoted the Palestinian “armed struggle” against Israel and the Jews, it was thus no real surprise that the Palestinians, also sick of the PLO-PA-Fatah corruption, overwhelmingly voted for Hamas.

While the international community did its utmost to promote the fallacy of a moderate PLO-Fatah against a fanatical Hamas, the truth is that there is no real difference between the groups. Both equally strive to destroy Israel. Their disagreements are only on the immediacy of the use of widespread violence and terror against Israel and who controls the purse strings of the billions of dollars of international aid, naively given to the PA.

Once the PLO-PA, on its part, and Hamas on its part, created the environment in which thousands of Gazans could invade Israel to murder, rape, torture and kidnap men, women, children and the elderly, it was then not surprising to hear⁵ that 72% of all Palestinians, 82% in Judea and Samaria, and 57% in Gaza, believed that Hamas’s decision to launch the October 7 massacre was correct. As of May 2025, despite the death and destruction, 50% of Palestinians still believe Hamas was correct.⁶ A staggering 87% of Palestinians still reject the unequivocal fact that the Gaza terrorists carried out atrocities during the massacre.⁷

Shamefully, when the Palestinian leadership – Hamas and the PLO/PA alike – assess the aftermath of the massacre, they are encouraged.

For decades, the PLO/PA and Hamas have indoctrinated Palestinian society to embrace martyrdom. They place little value on the lives of the Gazans killed. For them, the dead, whatever their number may be,⁸ are nothing more than ammunition to fuel propaganda and delegitimize Israel.

Actively supported by the United Nations, and all of its cancerous tentacles, together with large sections of the international media, the PLO/PA and Hamas have taken the adage that a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can put its boots on to unparalleled levels. Repeat a big lie over and over again, said Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels, and the world will believe it.

To complete the “success,” of murdering, raping, torturing, and kidnapping Jews, the Palestinian leadership needed not only the UN and the international media, but also a handful of other useful idiots who have lost all moral clarity.

In step, French President Emmanuel Macron, UK and Australian Prime Ministers Keir Starmer and Anthony Albanese, and others, seek to give the PLO/PA and Hamas the ultimate prize possible: Recognition of the non-existent “State of Palestine.”

For over three decades, the Palestinian leadership has told the Palestinians that terror and murder are a religious imperative – a Jihad – of good against evil. The international community heard the incitement, saw the “Pay-for-Slay” policy, and watched, and sometimes even actively participated, as the PLO/PA embraced genocidal terrorists.

For this reason, until his virtual UN speech on September 25, 2025, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas did not unequivocally condemn the massacre and has not rejected Hamas. He simply cannot, because in its essence, the massacre was an integral part of his, the PLO’s, and the PA’s plan to destroy Israel.

As Israel is being delegitimized globally and while the international community rewards the Palestinians for the massacre, there can be no expectation that anything will change.

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Notes