Despite Endless Aid and Help, Palestinian Authority Calls America ‘Head of the Snake’

The US has spent $320 million on a floating port to help Gazans, and to ease the entrance of humanitarian aid to residents during the ongoing war. It has also been the driving force curbing Israel’s military campaign, yet Palestinians are busy biting the hand that feeds them.

A political commentator, who is frequently interviewed by official Palestinian Authority (PA) TV, recently labeled the American administration “the head of the snake, the head of evil, and the axis of evil,” falsely claiming that the US-funded port was used to help Israel prepare for and carry out its rescue operation of four Israeli hostages from the Nuseirat refugee camp:

Kamal Zakarneh: “The American administration is the head of the snake, the head of evil, and the axis of evil concerning the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people in general.

The [American] naval pier that was supposed to serve for bringing in [humanitarian] aid was used to commit the Nuseirat [refugee camp] massacre … From there the American Delta Force, technological equipment, and things related to the security situation and discovering the location of the [Israeli] prisoners came in  … Maybe the American Delta Force are the ones who carried out the operation.”

Official PA TV host: “Washington denied this.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, June 10, 2024]

Earlier in the war, before the port was built, Fatah’s Shabiba Youth Movement likewise announced that “the American administration is the head of terror,” adding that:

The criminal Biden, [US Secretary of State] Blinken, and the heads of their oppressive government are now placing themselves alongside Hitler, Mussolini, and the rest of the war criminals and perpetrators of crimes of genocide throughout history.” [emphasis added]

[Ma’an, independent Palestinian news agency, Dec. 9, 2023]

The libel about the port being used to help Israel free the hostages adds to previous libels about the floating port. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, has claimed that the port is just an “Israeli-American plot to expel Gazans” as Palestinian Media Watch reported:

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “The floating port is an attempt to throw dust in [our] eyes. It is an attempt to keep the situation in the Gaza Strip under Israeli rule and Israeli sovereignty…

What we fear is that this floating port will constitute a prelude to carrying out the Israeli plot that strives to expel the Gaza Strip residents through different ports.

[Facebook, May 18, 2024]

Earlier on Facebook, Al-Habbash had criticized the US for supporting Israel against the terror organization Hamas, calling the entire administration “criminal”: “Behind them [Israel] is only the criminal American administration led by criminal [US] President [Joe] Biden and his criminal [US] Secretary of State [Antony Blinken], who are sponsoring this occupation and its crimes.”

A host on official PA TV stated that “the US is fighting the Palestinian people with an Israeli arm”:

Secretary-General of the International Academic Campaign against Israel Ramzi Oudeh: “America, with all of these [UN] resolutions [calling for a ceasefire] that it is neutralizing with a veto… before the entire world the US has become a partner in the act of aggression (i.e., the 2023 Gaza war). It is a partner not only in the legal and international defense of Israel, but also a partner in terms of supplying weapons, tanks, planes, and launchers…”

Official PA TV host: “The US is the one fighting the Palestinian people but with an Israeli arm…”

Ramzi Oudeh: “Israel is originally an imperialist, colonialist, settler project – imperialist in the sense that imperialism created it in this region, imperialism feeds it, and imperialism is still defending it… Do we expect that this state [the US] will defend the Palestinian civilians? Do we expect that this state would agree to any resolution for stopping the war? On the contrary, its position supports the position of Israel.”

[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Feb. 21, 2024]

Al-Habbash has also blamed the US for bearing “full responsibility for the ‘holocaust’ in the Gaza Strip due to its support for the Israeli aggression.” He has described America’s vetoes at the UN in favor of Israel as “additional American aggression and a continuation of the hostility against our people by the American administration.”

In the same statement, Al-Habbash suggested that “the Arab and Islamic states change the language of discourse with the US and speak with it in the only way it understands — the language of interests,” by way of “exerting pressure” on the US “through its interests, which are spread in the states of the Islamic world” [WAFA, official PA news agency, Feb. 20, 2024].

Given the ongoing Palestinian condemnations, libels, and even open threats against America and its interests, American leaders would be well advised to rethink whether their massive economic assistance to the Palestinians indeed serves aspirations for stability and security in the region.