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The Palestinians and the October 7 Massacre

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

Table of Contents

Summary

The persistent conflict between Israel and the Palestinians stems from fundamentally opposing intentions regarding peace efforts. While Israel has repeatedly sought coexistence, the Palestinian leadership has viewed agreements like the Oslo Accords as tactical steps rooted in deceit, designed to advance a long-term strategy to destroy Israel.

Decades of incitement, propaganda, and financial incentives for terrorism have fostered a culture of glorifying violence. Both the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas share the same ultimate goal, differing only in methods and timing.

Widespread support among Palestinians for the October 7 massacre illustrates the deep societal indoctrination against Israel, reinforced by international institutions and political leaders who, knowingly or not, legitimize Palestinian leadership narratives.

As a result, peace remains unattainable while terrorism is encouraged, Israel is delegitimized, and the Palestinian leadership refuses to renounce violence.

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.

* * *

Notes

  1. https://palwatch.org/page/8↩︎

  2. According to the plan, the PLO is committed to “establish the independent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated” (paragraph 2). The PLO-created entity will then “strive to achieve a union of the confrontation countries, with the aim of completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory” (paragraph 8). To achieve its goal, the PLO will “employ all means, and first and foremost armed struggle” (paragraph 2). For the PLO, “Any step taken towards liberation is a step towards the realization of the Liberation Organization’s strategy” (paragraph 4). Nonetheless, the PLO will “struggle against any proposal for a Palestinian entity the price of which is recognition, peace, secure frontiers, renunciation of national rights and the deprival of our people of their right to return and their right to self-determination on the soil of their homeland” (paragraph 3).↩︎

  3. https://jcpa.org/the-use-of-wafa-by-the-palestinian-leadership-to-set-the-stage-for-terror/↩︎

  4. https://jcpa.org/article/will-the-pas-restructured-pay-for-slay-policy-lead-to-renewed-u-s-funding/; https://jcpa.org/how-will-we-know-the-pa-has-ended-the-pay-for-slay-policy/ ; https://jcpa.org/paying-salaries-terrorists-contradicts-palestinian-vows-peaceful-intentions/↩︎

  5. https://pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2090%20English%20Full%20text%20Dec%202023.pdf ↩︎

  6. https://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2095%20press%20release%206May2025%20ENGLISH.pdf↩︎

  7. Ibid↩︎

  8. https://jcpa.org/lies-damn-lies-and-un-washed-hamas-propaganda-statistics/↩︎

FAQ
Why are the Oslo Accords seen differently by Israel and the Palestinian leadership?
Israel viewed the accords as a path toward peace and coexistence, while Palestinian leaders regarded them as a tactical deception to gain territory and continue their struggle against Israel.
What role does incitement play in the Palestinian Authority’s governance?
Instead of combating terror as promised, the PA actively fosters hatred through propaganda, demonization of Jews, and policies like “Pay-for-Slay,” which financially reward terrorism.
How do Hamas and the Palestinian Authority differ in their approach toward Israel?
Both aim to destroy Israel, but they differ on the timing and methods of violence, as well as competition over control of international aid.
Why did Palestinians vote for Hamas in 2006?
Widespread disillusionment with corruption in the PA and years of indoctrination supporting “armed struggle” led to a landslide victory for Hamas.
How does international involvement influence the conflict?
Global institutions, media, and certain political leaders often reinforce Palestinian leadership narratives, inadvertently rewarding terrorism and delegitimizing Israel, further entrenching the conflict.

Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch

Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch served as Director of the Military Prosecution for Judea and Samaria. Since retiring from the IDF, Hirsch worked as the Head of Legal Strategies for Palestinian Media Watch, as a Senior Military Consultant for NGO Monitor, an advisor to the Ministry of Defense, and head of an advisory committee in the Ministry of Interior. Hirsch was the architect of the Israeli law that strips citizenship from Israeli terrorists who have been convicted for terror offenses, sentenced to a custodial sentence, and receive a payment from the Palestinian Authority as a reward for their acts of terror.
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