Top Palestinian Authority Official Predicts Trump Will ‘Destroy Iran,’ Decimate Hamas
Then-Republican presidential nominee and current US-President-elect Donald Trump looks on during a rally at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, in Uniondale, New York, US, Sept. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
A top Palestinian leader has predicted that US President-elect Donald Trump will “destroy Iran” and thereby eviscerate the remaining capacities of its proxy Hamas after he enters office next month.
“We see that Trump and the ruling government in Israel are planning to destroy Iran, so Hamas [followers] will have no other choice than to become Palestinian,” Mohammad Hamdan, secretary general of the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah Party, told the New York Post in a new interview.
Hamdan claimed that the Palestinian Authority’s efforts in “confronting Hamas’s ideology” have been stymied by the terrorist group’s ties to the Iranian regime. However, Hamdan told the Post that he believes the Trump administration’s presence will lead to Iran and Hamas’s complete collapse.
In the year following Hamas’s brutal invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7, Israel has decimated the terrorist group’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza. At the same time, Hamas has increased its activity in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority (PA) exercises limited self-rule, often engaging in direct confrontation with the PA.
Some anti-Israel activists have accused the PA and Fatah, the main Palestinian faction in the West Bank and the movement that controls the PA, of “collaborating” with the Jewish state due to its efforts to combat terrorist activity in the West Bank.
The PA, a rival of Hamas, has sought to publicly distance itself from the terrorist group while also engaging in Palestinian reconciliation talks. Meanwhile, PA officials have been regularly rationalizing Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and in some cases even denying it took place or falsely claiming Israeli forces carried out the onslaught.
Fatah in April lambasted Iran for meddling in internal Palestinian affairs, accusing the Iranian regime of spreading chaos in its territory.
Two months later, the office of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah, said that Iran wants to “sacrifice the blood of the Palestinians” after Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praised Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
US officials in the Biden administration have reportedly expressed support for a “revitalized” PA — which has long been riddled with allegations of corruption and authoritarianism while governing the Palestinians in the West Bank — to take over Gaza following the Israel-Hamas war.
Nonetheless, Hamdan criticized US influence in the Middle East, arguing that Washington’s decision-making has likely entrenched Islamic extremism in the region.
“Look what happened in Syria. First, the US declared the rebels to be al Qaeda, and then [last week] an American delegation visited Syria,” he told the Post. “And the one before that, when the Americans struck deals with the Taliban in Afghanistan.”
“We as Palestinians believe that most of these extremist Islamic groups are produced by America by its effort to create a new Middle East,” he added.
Despite polling showing the PA’s unpopularity with the general Palestinian population, the Palestinian leader predicted that the end of the war in Gaza could present a “historically unprecedented opportunity” for the PA to consolidate its power in both the coastal enclave and the West Bank.
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