Angry responses are being heard from within the Palestinian Authority (PA) regarding the video Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released Sept. 9 in which he claims that the Palestinian leadership is demanding a Palestinian state without Jews and that that is equivalent to ethnic cleansing.

A Palestinian source close to President Mahmoud Abbas told Al-Monitor that Palestinian officials at the Muqata are usually not surprised by the prime minister's attacks on the PA in general and Abbas in specific. This time, however, they said, Netanyahu's words constitute an escalation in the Israeli prime minister's incitement of hatred against them.

“Netanyahu painted a distorted picture of an imaginary reality in which normal relations exist between Jews and Arabs,” senior Fatah member Qadura Fares told Al-Monitor. “According to him, there is no occupation, no settler violence against Palestinians, no confiscation or takeover of lands, no arrests of Palestinians at the roadblocks, no shooting and killing, and even no uprooting of olive trees.”

Ayman Odeh, a Knesset member and the chairman of the predominantly Arab Joint List, also asserted to Al-Monitor that Netanyahu is constructing an “imaginary reality.” In the video, Netanyahu compares the Arab citizens of the State of Israel to the settlers in Judea and Samaria and says that no one has ever seriously claimed that the almost 2 million Arabs living in Israel constitute an obstacle to peace. “On the contrary. Israel's diversity shows its openness and readiness for peace,” Netanyahu says.