BREAKING NEWS

Steinitz says PA incitement 'also responsible' for Afula murder

The "horrible" anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli incitement in the Palestinian Authority is "also responsible" for the terrorist murder in Afula Wednesday of 19-year-old Eden Atias, Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said Wednesday.
Steinitz said that while he was confident that the PA "will condemn it, sooner or later, in English as they often do," the PA cannot exonerate itself because of the "terrible, horrible anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement that has become a culture of hatred in the Palestinian Authority, sponsored by the government and President Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas]."
Steinitz, whose ministry is responsible for monitoring Palestinian incitement, said the message young Palestinians are being fed on a daily basis in the official PA media and in the schools is that "sooner or later Israel should be destroyed, or the Jews killed or expelled."
"This terrible idea that Jews are horrible creatures is also responsible for this act of terror, while we are negotiating a peace deal," he said at a speech hosted by the Jerusalem Press Club.
According to Steinitz the incitement and culture of hatred that it leads to is the "main obstacle for peace." And incitement, he added, was sponsored not by "zealots or some members of parliament," but by the Palestinian Authority. In light of this incitement, he said, many Israelis are asking themselves whether at the end of any diplomatic process they will get "genuine peace, or only a piece of paper."