Much of the international community has clung to the fiction that Hamas and Fatah are different—that Hamas is irredeemably extremist, while Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority, is flawed but pragmatic.
Abbas Zaki, a senior Fatah leader and member of its Central Committee, the Palestinian Authority’s ruling political party, said recently that “Israel is doomed to perish.”
This is not an isolated incident; when examined closely, there’s little difference between the future that Fatah and Hamas want. And that is a future where Israel does not exist.
Zaki said this is as part of a Jan. 9 interview with Arabi 21, an Arabic news website based in the United Kingdom: “In the end, the winner is the one who remains on the land … and those who will remain are the ones with the idea, the idea that says there is no escaping the fact that this land will be liberated, and that the land of peace cannot be based on revenge. Israel is doomed to perish.”
There is no ambiguity here. No mistranslation. No context that softens the meaning. This is not the rhetoric of a partner for peace or the language of a movement committed to a peaceful future. It is a declaration of intent—one that mirrors, almost perfectly, the genocidal aims openly proclaimed by Hamas.
But there’s more. Zaki is not a marginal figure in Fatah. Twenty years ago, he served as the top representative to Lebanon for the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which at the time was one of the terror group’s most visible and important foreign-affairs posts. He went on to a position in Beijing. Fatah is the dominant faction of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority.
Nor was this anywhere near the first time Zaki spoke honestly about his desire to see Israelis and Jews slaughtered. In 2014, he said, “These Israelis have no religion and no principles, they are an advanced instrument of evil,” and “I believe that God will gather them so we can kill them.”
And just days after Hamas led the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, The Times of Israel reported: “In an interview with the Lebanese channel, Fatah’s Abbas Zaki thanked the armed wings of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, responsible for the Oct. 7 onslaught.”
For years, much of the international community has clung to the comforting fiction that Hamas and Fatah are fundamentally different—that Hamas is irredeemably extremist while Fatah, which dominates the P.A., is merely flawed but pragmatic. Zaki’s words expose that illusion. It is really hard to tell what separates Hamas and Fatah.
As uncomfortable as it may be for New York Times pundits and leaders of groups like J Street, who have spent decades heavily invested in the “peace process,” the truth is this: Hamas and Fatah share more in common than what separates them, and chief among their shared goals is the elimination of the Jewish state.
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