Fatah Official Says ‘Palestinian Holocaust’ Is a Winning Card

The Palestinian leadership is keenly aware that the strongest weapon in their arsenal against Israel in the Oct. 7 war is victimhood, and that their challenge is to effectively play this “Palestinian holocaust Card “– “the winning card” — as a senior Fatah official recently called it.

Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) play a key role in this dirty tactic.

Hamas actively seeks to increase the number of dead Gazans in order to “inflame public opinion” against Israel, as was exposed by Fatah TV. It also murders Gazans seeking food, in order to maintain its monopoly over the vast quantities of humanitarian aid that it steals, thereby creating a narrative of “starvation.” The PA then runs with this manufactured humanitarian crisis and sells this “Palestinian holocaust” to the world as being Israel’s fault, in order to delegitimize Israel’s defensive war through feigned victimhood.

One of the top Fatah leaders, Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub, made this message very explicit on official PA TV, when he called to exploit “the Palestinian holocaust … the winning card”:

Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “We the Palestinians, what is happening to us and what has happened to us for two years [in the Gaza war], and in fact it has been happening for 77 years [since Israel’s creation] – but today the world is convinced of it. This is the Palestinian holocaust, and this is the winning card that we need to know how to use.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Aug. 5, 2025]

Rajoub asserted that in the past two years of war, the world has become “convinced” of Palestinian victimhood, and he emphasized the need to exploit this. Indeed, the PA has been trying to manipulate anti-Israel bias in various ways, including by pushing lawfare actions against Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Palestinian Media Watch recently exposed these actions that violate American law in a report sent to the US State Department, and in response to the US announced sanctions against PLO and PA members.

Aside from the PA led by Fatah, Hamas itself has been cynically pushing a narrative of victimhood.

Hamas, which started the current war with a horrific massacre and continues to hold Israeli hostages in horrific conditions, also recognizes that the world has eagerly gobbled up the demonization against Israel’s defensive war in Gaza.

The Oct. 7 massacre has brought various boons to the Palestinians, according to senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad. One of the main results listed by Hamad is the demonization of Israel on the world stage, which has come about through the extensive Palestinian victimhood campaign:

Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad: “The whole world believed that the occupation state [i.e., Israel] is a democratic, beautiful, oppressed, and persecuted state. Today I think that the whole world believes that this mask has fallen from Israel’s face.

The whole world has begun to act against Israel. The marches and rallies that are now in America, Britain, France, and Germany all speak of genocide. Who [would have] imagined that today occupation state [Israeli] Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] is wanted by the International Criminal Court? And that even its [Israeli Army] Chief of Staff [sic., former Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant] is wanted by the ICC? And that Israel is now accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing? All these things have exposed Israel.” [emphasis added]

[Al-Jazeera TV Live website, Aug. 2, 2025; Al-Jazeera TV Live, YouTube channel, Aug. 3, 2025]

In celebrating the so-called achievements of the Oct. 7 massacre, Hamad singled out the false accusations of “genocide and ethnic cleansing.” These accusations are part of the Palestinian narrative that has no basis in fact of course, as the population of Gaza has actually grown during the alleged “genocide.”

But according to Hamad, by playing the victim card in the current war, the Palestinians have started the “collapse” of Israel, as he asserted in the same interview:

Ghazi Hamad: “In this war against the occupation on Oct. 7, the countdown to the collapse of the occupation state began, and I believe it has already entered a stage of collapse.”

[Al-Jazeera TV Live website, Aug. 2, 2025; Al-Jazeera TV Live, YouTube channel, Aug. 3, 2025]

Given the number of Western states pledging to recognize “Palestine” as a state following Oct. 7, and the arms embargo on Israel recently announced by Germany, it seems the Palestinian strategy of playing the “winning” holocaust card has indeed been working. It remains to be seen if and when the world will stop being a tool of Palestinian terror organizations.

The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.