BICOM

In an interview today in Arabic on Kol Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called the murder of five members of a Jewish family in the settlement of Itamar on Friday night a “despicable, immoral and inhumane” act. Abbas said that the Palestinian Authority would have stopped the attack if it had received intelligence or prior notification. Abbas also said that he agreed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to conduct a joint investigation into the killing. In addition, Abbas said that he did not predict a new wave of violent attacks against Israel and stressed that he would not allow any outbreaks of violence to take place.

Following the terrorist attack, the Israeli government accused the Palestinian Authority of incitement. Netanyahu raised the issue of Palestinian incitement in his weekly cabinet meeting yesterday. Later in the same day the PMO’s office released a document with recent examples of Palestinian Authority incitement. The list of incitement examples, drawn from official PA channels, included encouraging attacks against Israeli civilians, raising mass-murderers to the status of national heroes, and perpetuating a culture of rejectionism. 

In response the Israeli Government created an “Incitement and Culture of Peace Index” as a mechanism to track levels of incitement.