400 Convicted Terrorists to Form New Palestinian Government in Judea and Samaria (West Bank)

**Ben Hilton** (0:00)
The leading party within the Palestinian Authority has just made a major shift in the way the government will operate, and it's not good for Israel. They have just brought into the party nearly 400 convicted terrorists, mostly those who have killed Israelis. And these terrorists will play a major part in shaping the future of the party. And that future may be much closer and much more dangerous than many realize.
The Palestinian government is supposedly gearing up for elections. I say supposedly because they haven't actually held elections for 20 years, and every time they gear up for a new one, something always happens at the last minute to call it off. But the official word is that they are gearing up to try this again in the fall. And to prepare for these elections, PA President Mahmoud Abbas decided to run internal elections for Fatah, which is the primary driving force behind Palestinian governance. And this is the scary part. In the past, someone was eligible to run as a candidate for Fatah based on criteria such as age, seniority, geographic representation and so forth. But this time, Abbas, who is in his 90s by the way, decided to change things up. He just opened up eligibility to anyone who has served in Israeli prison for carrying out a terrorist attack against Jews. You heard that right. Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, who the world calls the best peace partner for Israel, just made terrorism a qualifying criterion for governance. And it's even worse than that. Only terrorists who have been sentenced to over 20 years in Israeli prison qualify. So that means the worst of the worst people who have done unimaginable things, are now qualified to represent the Palestinian people. So how many people are we actually talking about?
388
388 Arab terrorists who have received over 20 years sentences in Israeli prisons for horrific crimes will now vote to decide who leads the Palestinian government. And to remind you, the Palestinian Authority controls an American armed and equipped active security force of over 30,000 to 40,000 personnel. And this security force operates in the backyards of hundreds of thousands of Israelis. And to clarify exactly what we're talking about here, Fatah is led by a council of 2,500 voting delegates. And of these 2,500 delegates in the new council that was just established, 388 of them are the terrorists who were sentenced to over 20 years in Israeli prisons.
Of those 388, 30 went on to run in internal elections for Fatah's Central Committee and in the Revolutionary Council. And that's not to say that the other 2,000-some-odd delegates aren't terrorists, by the way. All we know is they didn't serve life sentences in Israeli prisons. But just looking at those 30 terrorists running for office, their combined convictions represent 75 total life sentences by Israeli courts for crimes committed in Israel. And by crimes, I mean horrific murders. As just one example of what we're talking about here, one of these guys, Yasser Abelbacher, masterminded a series of attacks in Israel around 2002
In one of these attacks, a 9-month-old baby was murdered, along with another Israeli. Another candidate is Marwan Barghouti, who, ironically enough, continues to be the most voted for candidate in Fatah's internal elections, receiving more votes than Abbas himself. His crimes were orchestrating a series of attacks during the Second Intifada, including shootings and bombings. The chairman of Fatah is quoted as saying, Marwan was the leader of the Second Intifada, the Intifada that killed over a thousand Israelis, including over 100 children. Thankfully, he is still behind bars serving out his life sentences.
The fact that he is still in prison is the one thing stopping him from becoming the leader of the Palestinian Authority. And again, this Palestinian Authority commands a security force of 30,000 to 40,000 people. The security threat this poses to Israelis cannot be overstated. And this shift in Palestinian politics is very popular. When Abbas mentioned the terrorists in a speech at the convention, it was greeted with a loud, prolonged applause. And in continued polling, around half of the so-called Palestinians openly say that they believed armed resistance is the best way to achieve independence, which is kind of insane considering how Gaza is completely leveled as a result of so-called armed resistance. Any reasonable person looking at this situation can clearly see that the so-called peace that the Palestinians are pursuing does not mean peace with Israel. It means peace without Israel.
Honestly, this marks a major shift for Palestinian governance. Even though the Palestinian Authority continues to quietly pay salaries to terrorists who murder Israelis in the despicable Pay to Slave program and glorify a culture of martyrdom, for a while at least they have made a show of publicly being at peace with Israel. They officially renounced terrorism in the late 1980s and have open relationships with countries across the world as a supposedly normal government. In recent years, if an Israeli should get lost or make a wrong turn and drive into an Arab community in Judea and Samaria, there were two likely outcomes depending on who caught him first. Remember that these communities in Area A have a large red sign posted at the entrance that say entering for an Israeli is a risk to life. If the local population caught him first, he would very likely be lynched by an angry mob and quite possibly never be seen alive again.