Who is really inciting violence in Israel-Palestine conflict?
Deputy Palestinian Information Minister Mohammed Khalifa tells Al-Monitor that, while Israel blames them for incitement, right-wing Israelis are responsible for the violence.
The Palestinian Information Ministry in Ramallah has in recent months been compiling materials it claims are proof that the Israeli media incites hatred against Palestinians in general and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in particular.
Many West Bank Palestinians share the feeling that Israel is conducting unbridled incitement, even though some of this is based on reports that were never published in the Israeli media or were misleadingly interpreted. Now many of these allegedly hatred-inciting reports are being bound in a thick file that is being updated daily since the current wave of terrorism began in October 2015.
The so-called “incitement file,” prepared by the Palestinian Ministry of Information, currently comprises about 270 pages of newspaper clippings (including ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspapers such as Yated Ne’eman and Hamodia, to which most Israelis are never exposed) and transcripts of news reports aired on major Israeli television channels.
“You accuse us of incitement, but you would do well to put your house in order,” Deputy Information Minister Mohammed Khalifa told Al-Monitor. Despite the ministry’s tight budget, the issue is too important to be ignored. Thus, two Hebrew-speaking researchers have been hired by the ministry to analyze Israeli media stories that prove, in their view, the extent to which the reports distort reality and incite distrust and animosity against the Palestinians.
