On August 9th the Palestinian Islamic Jihad announced that it will not take part in October’s municipal elections in the PA controlled areas and the Gaza Strip.
““We will not participate in the municipal and local elections,” the terrorist group said in a statement.
The movement, a splinter and sometimes rival of the Islamist terror group Hamas which runs the Gaza Strip, said the elections were not an “appropriate way out of the Palestinian national impasse.”
Instead, the group called on Hamas to reconcile with its rival Fatah, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas.”
Another terrorist group is however participating in the elections and on August 8th its supporters put out a video designed to boost Hamas’ election campaign. As the Times of Israel reports, the film features “smiling people holding up signs with the hashtag “Thank you Hamas””.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR-qrSvncLc
Channel 10’s Arab affairs correspondent Hezi Simantov described the video as being aimed at showing that Hamas has rehabilitated the Gaza Strip and that its residents live normal lives. He added that the film is intended to create the impression that Hamas takes an interest in – and cares about – the situation of the residents of the Strip but that it has already raised a storm of criticism from those who (rightly) claim that it does not depict the whole picture of the situation in the Gaza Strip.
The BBC has so far refrained from reporting on the scheduled elections at all but if and when it does get round to doing so, it is unlikely that its audiences will learn of this Hamas campaign material which promotes the water parks, luxury hotels, restaurants, green sports fields and smart shopping malls that BBC audiences have never been told exist in the Gaza Strip.
Related Articles:
Inaccuracy in BBC’s Fatah profile exposed
