Palestinians accuse US envoy of adopting ‘occupation’s policy’

“Friedman’s accusations reflected his prejudiced and selective attitude towards the occupation,” the Palestinians charged.

By: Aryeh Savir, World Israel News

The Palestinians harshly criticized US ambassador to Israel David Friedman for what they say is his adoption of Israel’s policy of “occupation” after Friedman assailed the Palestinian Authority (PA) for its incitement to terrorism.

“Friedman’s accusations reflected his prejudiced and selective attitude towards the occupation, settlements construction, and the Palestinian just and legitimate national rights,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry stated Thursday.

Friedman’s remarks “further complicated the road towards the peace process and the resumption of negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian sides,” the statement said.

The Palestinians stressed that “Friedman’s bias toward racist occupation policies encourages the occupation authorities and the settlers to commit more crimes violating the defenseless Palestinian citizens, their land, their property, their sanctities and their trees.”

The Palestinians’ enraged statement was in response to Friedman’s remarks a day earlier that slammed the Palestinians’ support of terrorism and their payments to convicted terrorists.

Friedman criticized the Palestinians for the terror attack on Tuesday in which a terror cell shot and killed Rabbi Raziel Shevach, saying, “look no further to why there is no peace.”

“An Israeli father of six was killed last night in cold blood by Palestinian terrorists. Hamas praises the killers and PA laws will provide them financial rewards. Look no further to why there is no peace,” Friedman tweeted Wednesday.

Palestinian terror groups and factions, including the PA’s Fatah, praised the murderous attack.

Friedman was referring to a report released by Israel’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday, which detailed the Palestinian payment system to Palestinian terrorists and their families.

The report shows that in 2017 alone, the PA compensated terrorists and their next of kin to the tune of more than $347 million.

Meanwhile, seeking to point to the real reason there is no peace in the region, the Palestinians asserted that President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last month “is the main and direct reason for the disruption of American efforts to resume negotiations, which has led to the absence of hope for peace and has brought the arena of conflict into a cycle of instability and tension.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday praised the US envoy for “tweeting the truth.”

“I want to congratulate Ambassador Friedman, the American ambassador to Israel, who tweeted the truth, unvarnished, straight forward,” Netanyahu told foreign journalists at a reception in Jerusalem. “He said some important things. The important thing is that [PA head Mahmoud] Abbas’ government is supporting the kind of murderers that murdered a father of six. Such people in our jails get $355 million a year, they and their families, from the Palestinian Authority. That is something that is untenable.”

“Funding and incentivizing murder doesn’t exactly advance peace,” he said. “Kill an Israel and get rich. Now what kind of message does this send to impressionable Palestinian children?”