Who to believe - Judge by their actions

This is Hanan Ashrawi. Official 'Palestinian' spokesperson.

She looks nice, doesn't she? When I first saw her on TV, I thought to myself "If the Arabs can put people like her in the lead, this problem will go away in no time. We can talk with her".
And although her tongue has become a bit sharper since her entrance onto the world stage, she still mostly says things like this (in public anyway).

"Peace with justice is not an abstract value; it is a real determining factor of our lives. It is a most basic human right, and we appreciate everything you've done, in order not just to talk about peace with justice for Palestine and Israel, but also to act on that basis"

This quote comes from a video message to the World Council of Churches.

Hanan Ashrawi is PA cabinet member and 'Palestinian' spokesperson. She is Arab. She speaks Arabic. Chances are she's been speaking Arabic since she was 18 months old...

So she must know what's being said at the other end of the PA political spectrum.

Sheikh Ibrahim Madiras told the Arab neighbors of the Jews in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza:
"The Prophet said: the Resurrection will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims kill them. The Muslims will kill the Jews, rejoice [in it], rejoice in Allah's Victory. The Muslims will kill the Jews, and he [the Jew] will hide. The Prophet said: the Jews will hide behind the rock and tree, and the rock and tree will say: O servant of Allah, o Muslim this is a Jew behind me, come and kill him! Why is there this malice? Because there are none who love the Jews on the face of the earth: not man, not rock, and not tree everything hates them. They destroy everything. They destroy the trees and destroy the houses. Everything wants vengeance on the Jews, on these pigs on the face of the earth, and the day of our victory, Allah willing, will come."

Ashrawi is no fool. She plays her part, and she plays it beautifully. Few Jews are fooled by her, but the English-speaking world loves her, and is taken in by her secular, sophisticated looks and a demeanor that radiates reason and rationality. But she is part and parcel of a society that thinks and acts like this:

Numerous times in recent years, Arab religious leaders and academics in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority have taught publicly that the Islamic teaching calling for the murder of Jews applies today. Even Ashrawi herself, according to PMW Director Itamar Marcus,
"did not condemn in Arabic the suicide bombing that killed tens in a Jerusalem pizza shop, or the hundreds of civilians murdered on buses, in recent years. Not even once... The first public statement against suicide terrorism in Arabic was made by Ashrawi only in an open petition she signed with other Palestinians in the Al-Quds newspaper on June 19, 2002... However, even a simple reading of the petition shows that she explicitly does not reject terror as a tool when it is politically effective, but only when it causes political damage. The petition does not include a single word of condemnation of suicide terrorism, and does not rule out terrorism at times when it is an effective tool. It deals entirely with the negative political results of suicide terrorism now for her cause."

Marcus concludes: "Ashrawi is not a moderate by any Western standard. She is a slick terrorist supporter who understands the importance of public relations, proper timing and spin for terrorism."

Too right.
Palestinian Media Watch