Anchor Amna Nawaz hosted on Thursday’s PBS News Hour as her expert Steven Erlanger, chief diplomatic correspondent and former Jerusalem bureau chief and fiercely pro-Palestinian voice for years at the paper. They spoke about Israel killing young Islamic Jihad leader Mohammed Jaber in a West Bank action.
Amna Nawaz: ….So these Israeli forces had been trying to kill Mohammed Jaber for a very long time. They actually thought that they'd done so back in April, and then he emerged alive three days later to kind of cult status among people there for surviving. But tell us, who was Mohammed Jaber and why was he one of Israel's most wanted men?
Steven Erlanger, The New York Times: Well, he was the leader of a group of militants in the Tulkarm refugee camp. And he'd organized them very well. So there was a collective of militants from Fatah, from all the other factions. And after the October 7 invasion by Hamas, they started to recruit more people. And, spirited by that, encouraged by that invasion, many of them, like this kid Abu Shuja'a, turned to Islamic Jihad or to Hamas away from Fatah, because they felt that Hamas had actually broken through a complete stagnation in the prospect of Palestinian nationhood.
And so for a lot of people, he was a hero because he kept surviving Israeli efforts to kill him. But he represented a new generation of young Palestinian militants willing to fight and die for their dream of a free and independent Palestine and to drive Israeli occupiers, as they see them, out of the West Bank.
Erlanger used a term of affection for the terrorist Mohammed Jaber, born in 1998: “this kid Abu Shuja’a” (Jaber’s war name).
Amna Nawaz: ….But when you met with him in person a reporting trip to Tulkarm in the West Bank earlier this year and he told you he'd switched allegiances from the more moderate Fatah to the more extremist Islamic Jihad, what was the reason for that? Was that just because of October 7 or had that been building for a while?
Erlanger used loaded language like “collaborator,” a label that can get you killed in Gaza or the West Bank, and dismissed the horrific attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians as “ugly” yet inspiring for “many young Palestinians.” As if raping, murdering, and kidnapping civilians were actual building blocks toward a free society.
Erlanger: He switched to Islamic Jihad partly because everyone among his peers have lost faith in the Palestinian Authority. They regard them as collaborating with Israel. And they have been very offended that the Palestinian security forces, whenever Israel would come to attack people like Abu Shuja'a, did not fight the Israelis, but either collaborated with them or actually stayed at home.
So there's also been a growing dissatisfaction with the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and also the feeling that the Palestinian state was really going nowhere, that there was a stagnation, that life looked hopeless. And as ugly as the Hamas invasion was, for many young Palestinians, it expressed a degree of hope that their own situation was not hopeless forever.
When Nawaz asked if the goal of rooting out militants in the refugee camps in the West Bank (like the one in which jihadist Jaber was born,” Erlanger sounded almost admiring of the Palestinian goon squads, er, “kids.”
Erlanger: Well, it's impossible to defeat an idea. This, we understand, whether it's expressed by Hamas or by Fatah or by these kids. They have a dream of an independent Palestine. They have a dream of their land taken back, of Israeli settlers and occupiers gone. And there's going to be very little that Israel can do to destroy that….
As you can tell from the above sympathetic rendering of Palestinian terrorism, Erlanger has a not-so-“heroic history” of extreme pro-Palestinian bias, to the point of ignoring the reality that anti-Israel terrorists exist. Perhaps most notoriously, Erlanger referred to the “heroic history” of Palestine Liberation Organization founder and terrorist Yasir Arafat while reporting from the Gaza Strip in 2005:
Erlanger opened a March 2005 story by referring to Hamas as "the Islamic group that combines philanthropy and militancy."
This extreme pro-Palestinian segment was brought to you in part by Raymond James.
A transcript is available:
PBS News Hour
8/29/24
7:20:14 p.m. (ET)
Amna Nawaz: Israel and Hamas have agreed to pause fighting in Gaza to allow hundreds of thousands of children to receive polio vaccinations. Those pauses will occur in specific locations for eight to nine hours a day over three days beginning on Sunday. The World Health Organization aims to vaccinate 640,000 children under the age of 10.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, at least 16 people have been killed in what the Israeli military calls counterterrorism raids that began Wednesday in the cities of Jenin, Tulkarm, and the al-Fara'a refugee camp.
Among five militants Israeli forces say they killed today in the city of Tulkarm, Mohammed Jaber, a local commander they long pursued. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the militant force backed by Iran, confirmed Jaber's death. Israeli officials say Jaber was linked to — quote — "numerous terror attacks," including the June death of an Israeli man, Amnon Muchtar.
Jaber was killed in an overnight gun battle near a mosque which left residents caught in the crossfire. Khaled Abu Al-Ghiyab says he and his wife barely escaped their home alive.
Khaled Abu Al-Ghiyab, West Bank Resident (through interpreter):
The house went up in flames as they shot three, four rockets. We broke down the bathroom window and got out. My wife's shoulder and arm were burned. Thank God it only came to that.
Amna Nawaz: Meanwhile, families at the al-Fara'a refugee camp buried their dead, four killed in an Israeli raid yesterday. Masoud Naaja's survived that raid. Today, he buried his two children, who did not.
The IDF released this drone footage today they say showing a militant base inside a mosque in the camp. Their forces have now withdrawn from al-Fara'a. Also today, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said returning Israeli citizens to their homes along the Lebanese border, where fighting with Hezbollah continues, must be a goal of the war.
Just yesterday, rescued hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi returned to his village home near Rahat.
Qaid Farhan Alkadi, Rescued Hostage (through interpreter): I feel 100 percent and next to you another 200 percent. Do everything you can, if it's demonstrations, everything to bring the people home from this side to the other, and from the other side, to bring them back as well. For me, they are all human beings, no matter what.
Amna Nawaz: His return is bittersweet. Israel has said that his Bedouin Arab village was built without permits and has plans to demolish 70 percent of homes there. Alkadi's home has not received a demolition notice.
For perspective on Israel's operation in the West Bank, we turn to Steven Erlanger, chief diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times. He previously met with the Islamic Jihad leader who Israeli forces killed today.
Steven, welcome and thanks for joining us.
So these Israeli forces had been trying to kill Mohammed Jaber for a very long time. They actually thought that they'd done so back in April, and then he emerged alive three days later to kind of cult status among people there for surviving. But tell us, who was Mohammed Jaber and why was he one of Israel's most wanted men?
Steven Erlanger, The New York Times: Well, he was the leader of a group of militants in the Tulkarm refugee camp. And he'd organized them very well.
So there was a collective of militants from Fatah, from all the other factions. And after the October 7 invasion by Hamas, they started to recruit more people. And, spirited by that, encouraged by that invasion, many of them, like this kid Abu Shuja'a turned to Islamic Jihad or to Hamas away from Fatah, because they felt that Hamas had actually broken through a complete stagnation in the prospect of Palestinian nationhood.
And so for a lot of people, he was a hero because he kept surviving Israeli efforts to kill him. But he represented a new generation of young Palestinian militants willing to fight and die for their dream of a free and independent Palestine and to drive Israeli occupiers, as they see them, out of the West Bank.
Amna Nawaz: And Steven, just to clarify, Abu Shuja'a, who you referenced there, that's the nom de guerre of Mohammed Jaber. It translates to father of the brave.
But when you met with him in person a reporting trip to Tulkarm in the West Bank earlier this year and he told you he'd switched allegiances from the more moderate Fatah to the more extremist Islamic Jihad, what was the reason for that? Was that just because of October 7 or had that been building for a while?
Steven Erlanger: He switched to Islamic Jihad partly because everyone among his peers have lost faith in the Palestinian Authority. They regard them as collaborating with Israel.
And they have been very offended that the Palestinian security forces, whenever Israel would come to attack people like Abu Shuja'a, did not fight the Israelis, but either collaborated with them or actually stayed at home.
So there's also been a growing dissatisfaction with the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and also the feeling that the Palestinian state was really going nowhere, that there was a stagnation, that life looked hopeless.
And as ugly as the Hamas invasion was, for many young Palestinians, it expressed a degree of hope that their own situation was not hopeless forever.
Amna Nawaz: We just saw today the United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, say that these Israeli raids are fueling what he called an already explosive situation in the West Bank, but he also said they could further undermine the Palestinian Authority.
What do you make of that?
Steven Erlanger: Well, I think the Palestinian Authority is pretty well undermined in many ways, partly through its own faults, but also through the Israeli government's decision to withhold taxes from them, and also after October 7 they have closed the West Bank.
So Palestinians who had legal permits to work in Israel could no longer go to Israel to work, and Palestinians living in Israel could no longer go to places like Jenin and Tulkarm to even shop, so the economy crashed. And the Palestinian Authority was already weakened.
Now you have these far right ministers inside the Israeli government who talk about annexing the West Bank who are encouraging settlers to take more ground. So all of this does fuel more militancy and creates anxiety among the Israeli military that there will be a new wave of suicide bombings and explosives used against Israelis in Israel proper, let alone among the settlers.
Amna Nawaz: Well, Steven, as you know, Israel says the goal of this operation in the West Bank is to root out this militancy that, as you have reported on, has taken hold in many of the refugee camps there in the West Bank.
Knowing what you know about that force, is that goal attainable?
Steven Erlanger: Well, it's impossible to defeat an idea. This, we understand, whether it's expressed by Hamas or by Fatah or by these kids. They have a dream of an independent Palestine. They have a dream of their land taken back, of Israeli settlers and occupiers gone. And there's going to be very little that Israel can do to destroy that. The idea of a two-state solution, I have to say, seems farther away than ever. And it would require giving Palestinians authority and sovereignty and control over their own lives that Israel, for its stated security reasons, is not prepared to give. So I see this third-front war going on indefinitely.
