Now that Hamas and the PLO have reconciled, it ought to be understood that this is the general view that prevails among the entire “Palestinian” leadership. However, no doubt the fantasy will persist that the PLO/Fatah/the Palestinian Authority is “moderate,” while Hamas is “extremist.”
“Hamas TV celebrates killing: Our harvest is your heads,'” by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch, April 24, 2014:
A video broadcast on Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV yesterday shows actors playing Israeli soldiers entering the Gaza Strip, as a text on screen warns, “You will end up in Hell.” One by one the actor-soldiers are shot in the head, after which a Hamas sniper collects all the dog tags of the killed soldiers. A text appears on the screen: “Our harvest is your heads.”
Palestinian Media Watch reported that during the Gaza War, Hamas broadcast numerous TV clips celebrating the killing of Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Although the world was surprised by the unity agreement announced yesterday between Hamas and Fatah, the official PA daily had already reported nine days ago that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh announced a unity agreement was about to be finalized and implemented. In addition the Hamas head reiterated that kidnapping Israeli soldiers continues to be Hamas policy.
The following is the text in the official PA daily from April 16, 2014:
“Yesterday morning [April 15, 2014], Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of the deposed Hamas government in Gaza, said that the next stage would be the implementation of the reconciliation [between Fatah and Hamas] agreed on in the past, and the announcement of the end of the schism… Haniyeh emphasized that the next stage would be unlike those that preceded it, and would not [consist] of meetings alone, but of progress, through intensive steps, toward the completion of reconciliation and the implementation of that which has been agreed on.
He [Haniyeh] added: ‘The kidnapping of Israeli soldiers is part of the agenda of the Palestinian resistance and of the Hamas movement, and will continue as long as there are Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli prisons.’
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 16, 2014]