Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad was hailed last week for omitting the term “armed resistance” from the portions of his government platform dealing with Israel. But on Monday, Fayad appeared to bow to heavy criticism and threats of assassination by announcing that he does, in fact, support the Palestinian “right” to “resist” the Jewish residents of this region.
Holding fast to the assertion that the Palestinians “are certainly an occupied people,” Fayad told a Cairo press conference that “resistance is a legitimate right for the Palestinian people as an occupied people.”
However, Fayad insisted that resistance must start at home by “exerting every possible effort to ... reinforce the steadfastness of the Palestinian citizen on his land [sic].”
Fayad's official government platform broke sharply with that of the previous two Palestinian governments by failing to openly legitimize the “right” of Palestinian terror groups to harm Jewish men, women and children.
Hamas and affiliated terror groups labeled Fayad a traitor and one group even threatened to assassinate the newly-appointed leader.