Palestinian Authority television allegedly repeatedly broadcasted an educational series in early March highlighting the outdated 1964 Palestine Liberation Organization Charter that explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel, as reported by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) on Wednesday.
The broadcast did not make any mention of important amendments made in 1993 and 1995 that recognized Jewish connections to the land, in addition to forming the basis of acceptance of a two-state solution.
Rather, the television broadcast included a slide referring to Clause 16 of the charter, which calls for “the liberation of Palestine, from an international perspective, [as] a defensive operation necessitated by self-defense, as determined by the UN Charter.”
The narrator of the broadcast further added that the “The Charter… is based on the right to self-defense and to the return of the stolen homeland in its entirety; and it is a right that the international conventions and norms confirm.”
In addition, the segment discussing the charter did not note the two-state solution and the peace process, and claimed that return is a reference to “the return of the stolen homeland in it entirely,” later depicting a map replacing Israel with Palestine.
Beyond the television broadcast, PMW referred to the fact that the PLO still uses the 1964 charter on its website, including Clause 22, which claims Israel is a threat to all of humanity.
"Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress," Clause 22 reads.
"Israel is a constant source of threat vis-a-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian people look for the support of all the progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all, irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just struggle for the liberation of their homeland," the clause concludes.