New pandemic, old libel: Palestinians never miss a chance to hate on Israel

The PA uses the pandemic to spread libels against Israel among its population.

By World Israel News Staff

“Covid-19 ‎has provided new raw material for libels against Israel in general,” but in particular by the Palestinian Authority (PA) which uses the pandemic to revisit the libel that Israel abuses imprisoned Palestinian terrorists, Palestinian Media ‎Watch (PMW) reports.

Israel is condemned no matter what it does. If Israel doesn’t vaccinate prisoners, it’s “neglecting” them. If it does vaccinate, the PA accuses it of using the prisoners as guinea pigs, PMW reports. ‎

Muwaffaq Matar, the regular ‎columnist of the PA’s official daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, claims Israel is using the coronavirus as “a new weapon.”

In the paper’s Jan. 31 edition under the headline ‎‎“War crime – Tormenting the prisoners with the Coronavirus!” Matar writes, ‎‎“The Israeli racist occupation system found a new weapon in the ‎coronavirus, which it is using [as part of] a plan of tormenting and killing ‎the prisoners slowly and indirectly…”

“…[I]t is ‎enough for there to be one executioner from the occupation forces who ‎is sick with the coronavirus in order to infect hundreds of prisoners in ‎mere days,” he writes.

Among the PA’s claims are that “Israel abuses Palestinian prisoners, through medical neglect, medical experiments, and by intentionally infecting them with diseases.”

These libels, unsubstantiated by any outside body, including the International Red Cross, which has a historically hostile attitude toward Israel, do real-world consequences as PMW has pointed out elsewhere.

The killer of Esther Horgan, mother of six, said he chose to murder a Jew because a friend of his had died in prison. PA propaganda convinced him that Israel was responsible for his friend’s death.

Coronavirus libels against Israel have spread worldwide. Most recently, a Saturday Night Live joke propagated the lie that Israel is only vaccinating its Jewish citizens.