The Palestinian media is controlled strictly by the PA. Official censors oversee every edition of every newspaper, and broadcast. Incidents of arrests of editors and journalists, as well as the banning of publications or programs when they infringe upon PA policy, are not uncommon. Yet the expression of hatred against Israel and Jews is allowed to be published unfettered by the PA censor.

This climate of hatred has remained unaffected by the most significant of developments in the peace process. Not only did the Oslo Accords fail to prevent the ongoing anti-Semitism in the Arab world, it allowed official Palestinian propaganda to be legally published in Gaza and the West Bank areas under PA control. This is in direct contravention of the Interim Accord (known as Oslo 2) signed on 28 September 1995. Article XXII states that both Israel and the PA "shall seek to foster mutual understanding and tolerance and shall accordingly abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda, against each other and, without derogating from the principle of freedom of expression, shall take legal measures to prevent such incitement by any organisations, groups or individuals within their jurisdiction." Moreover, the Note for the Record, attached to the Hebron Agreement of 15 January 1997 restates the Palestinian commitment to prevent "incitement and hostile propaganda, as specified in Article XXII of the Interim Agreement."

Not only have Palestinian media and officials engaged in anti-Semitic attacks, but also the invention of bizarre conspiracy theories. One of the most pernicious was presented before a session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, in March 1997. Palestinian representative Nabil Ramlawi claimed, "Israeli authorities ... infected by injection 300 Palestinian children with the HIV virus during the years of the intifada."

The PA also attempts to negate, even to the point of lunacy, Israeli historical claims to Jerusalem. "The archaeology of Jerusalem is diverse," states a PA Information Ministry Press Release of 10 December 1997, "excavations in the Old City and the areas surrounding it revealed Umayyad Islamic palaces, Roman ruins, Armenian ruins and others, but nothing Jewish. Outside of what is mentioned/written in the Old and New Testaments, there is no tangible evidence of any Jewish traces/remains in the Old City of Jerusalem and its immediate vicinity." PA Mufti Ikrama Sabri told the Al-Ayyam newspaper, "The ‘Al-Buraq’ Wall [the Western Wall] is a part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Jews have no relation to it, whether or not a decision to expropriate it was made."

On November 7, only days after the signing of the Wye Agreement between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, the PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda featured one of the most anti-Semitic articles to appear in the Palestinian press this year. It stated, "Corruption is part of the nature of the Jews. So much so that it is only on rare occasions that one finds corruption in which Jews were not behind it."

A religious program, broadcast on PA-controlled television on November 3, described Jews and Judaism in demonic terms: "There is no light nor teaching in their Torah today. Their Torah is just a collection of writings in which those people wrote lies about God, His prophets and His teachings... the Jews are the seed of Satan and the devils."

Holocaust denial is also used extensively in the Palestinian media. The July 2 edition of Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda claimed that Jews "invented the shocking story of the gas ovens, where Hitler allegedly burned them ... the persecution of the Jews is a deceitful myth which the Jews have labelled the Holocaust and have exploited to get sympathy... And even if it is possible that Hitler’s assault against the Jews hurt them a little, the fact is it did them a clear service whose fruits they are reaping until today...."

Conspiracy theories are an integral part of the Palestinian Authority’s propaganda in the Arab world against Israel. The most recent example relates to the November 6 suicide bombing in Jerusalem. Again the newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda published the offending article, which claimed that "Palestinian sources believe Israeli intelligence is behind the bombing." The article blamed Israeli intelligence for carrying out the November 6 bombing, as well as "the grenade attack at a Beersheba bus station a few weeks ago."

The continued violation of the prohibition against incitement and propagation of hatred by the Palestinian Authority, through media and public pronouncements of its officials, is a threat to the process of reconciliation between the Palestinians and Israelis. Until Yasser Arafat acts to initiate and encourage truthful educational information about Israel and Jews in its media outlets, and stamps out the vitriolic hatred that appears throughout the PA, future Palestinian generations will remain tarred with the anti-Semitism and hatred of the past.