Reports have emerged that Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, claimed Israel was using wild pigs against Palestinians in the West Bank. Mr Abbas’s allegation was made during a speech at a conference in Ramallah on Friday night (November 21, 2014), according to the Jerusalem Post. “Every night they release wild pigs against us”, the president was quoted as saying, before adding “Why are they doing this?”. [2] The latest comments come after a Palestinian house was set on fire in Ramallah, the location of Mr Abbas’s speech, at around 4am on Sunday by Israeli settlers throwing Molotov cocktails. Anti-Palestinian graffiti was also daubed on the walls. Abbas also warned, once again, against the eruption of a religious war while calling on Israelis “not to come close to our holy sites, just as we don’t come near your synagogues.” Abbas added:
The Jews know very well that we seek peace and not war. We want to live as a free people in our land Palestine. We don’t want war and violence. We are opposed to all forms of violence, here and abroad. [3]
In the same speech, however, the Palestinian president called for bridges of love not war, instead of a “racist” fence, between the two communities. [4] . On Saturday, Abbas told Fatah leaders in Ramallah he was determined to pursue his statehood bid with the UN Security Council. Arab League foreign ministers were scheduled to meet at the end of this month to discuss the Palestinian bid, which calls for a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, he said.
The accusation of using wild pigs as a weapon is not new. In the past, the Palestinian authority has claimed that the IDF and Israeli settlers have released the animals to intimidate farmers and damage crops. An Israeli government official dismissed the allegations as “rubbish”. Some Jewish Publications would go on record noticing that “It was so ridiculous that even his own official news agency seems to be too embarrassed to publish it” [5] The official said this allegation was similar to one made in 2010 by the Egyptian governor of the south Sinai claiming a shark attack near Sharm e-Sheikh may have been triggered by the Mossad to harm Egyptian tourism. [6] The text of the speech is out; It can be found at PNN. Here’s the autotranslation of what he said:
What we want is to end the occupation and end legitimacy for, occupation and practices is the nightmare that is holding our hearts, as reflected these practices continued raids and arrests and the building of walls and demolition of houses, and the intensification of settlement activities, and attacks the settlers of Bakla trees and burning of mosques and the latest training dogs to attack us and send the wild pigs to wreak land corrupt, three things which the settlers will confront us: When any person Siatdon find it, well its streets and dogs, and pigs for the uprooting of trees, in addition of course to the tanks.