Party logos of 11 Palestinian election lists feature maps erasing Israel

PA President Abbas’s Fatah movement also uses an image that appears to display the entire region as Palestine; vote slated for May 22

By ToI Staff 16 April 2021, 2:41 pm

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Logos of 11 of the 36 Palestinian political lists, ahead of the 2021 legislative elections. (Palestinian Media Watch)

Ahead of legislative elections set for next month, logos of 11 of the 36 Palestinian political parties appear to deny Israel’s existence by displaying a map of the entire region as Palestine.

Aside from the dominant Palestinian movements — Fatah secularists and the Hamas terrorist group — many smaller factions also appear to use the same map that erases all of the State of Israel.

Palestinian Media Watch, an independent Israeli watchdog that monitors official Palestinian outlets, published a report about the party logos on Wednesday.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, which controls the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is running in the polls, as is Hamas, the terrorist group that has run the Gaza Strip since 2007.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wears a mask upon his arrival to head the Palestinian leadership meeting at his headquarters, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, May 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser, Pool)

In front of the map that erases Israel, Fatah’s logo also includes two rifles and a grenade. Israeli officials have repeatedly blamed the PA for inciting and fueling terrorism against Israelis.

Abbas’s former Gaza security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, who is currently in exile in Abu Dhabi, is backing a list of challengers, named “The Future,” which also uses a version of the map.

Abbas announced in mid-January that Palestinians would be returning to the polls for the first time in 15 years. He issued an electoral decree setting three rounds of elections, with the first — legislative elections — scheduled for May 22.