The Palestinian Authority is continuing to honor and glorify terrorists who carried out attacks against Israelis and has this time honored a terrorist who stabbed a soldier in Hevron earlier this month.
The incident occurred on March 8, when villagers tried to stop the arrest of Khaled Mahamrah, who was released a few months ago in exchange for Gilad Shalit. The stabber, Zakaria Abu-Aram, stabbed the soldier with a paper cutter. Aram was subsequently shot to death and another terrorist was shot and wounded.
The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) research institute has translated two reports from the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida which describe how PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas sent a condolence telegram to the family of the killed terrorist, in which he called the killed terrorist “courageous” and described the soldier’s act of shooting the terrorist who tried to kill him as an “assassination.”
A second report tells of Abbas sending his personal representative, Abbas Zaki, to visit the families of both terrorists and to express the leadership’s “solidarity.”
In the first report, dated March 11, Abbas is quoted as having written in the telegram he sent to Aram’s family, “I was greatly saddened by the announcement of Martyrdom death of your courageous son Zakariya Jamal Abu Aram, who was assassinated by the occupation army. His pure soul has ascended to the heights of glory in defense of the pure land of Palestine and the matters that are holy to our pure nation.”
The report then goes to say that Abbas “denounced this loathsome crime, which was carried out as part of a string of crimes by the occupation army against our defenseless people, with the aim of striking fear into it and dissuading it from continuing in its legitimate struggle for freedom and the establishment of our independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital.”
The second report, dated March 14, describes the visit by Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki and says he conveyed condolences on behalf of Abbas to the family of Abu Aram, who is defined as having “died as a Martyr after being shot by the occupation forces when he tried to prevent the arrest of the prisoner freed in the [Gilad] Shalit [prisoner exchange] deal.”
The report also mentions Zaki’s visit with the family of the injured terrorist, Mahmoud Omar Rashid. The report says Zaki “expressed the pride of the Palestinian leadership in this generation and in this heroism.”
PMW documents and exposes many incidents in which the PA’s official media outlets glorify terrorists and terrorism.
Last month the organization exposed two incidents in which PA TV broadcast a song that glorifies the use of terrorism to achieve an independent state.
The song states that violence and “Martyr’s blood” will be used to achieve statehood. It demonizes Israel as a “treacherous aggressor,” and vilifies the Jewish State as a “sinner.”
In December and January, the network broadcast videos praising Dalal Mughrabi, the perpetrator of the worst terrorist attack in Israeli history.
In 1978, Mughrabi led a terrorist cell in hijacking a tourist bus and murdering 37 Israeli civilians, including 13 children. The operation, which later became known as the Coastal Road Massacre, is regularly glorified on official PA TV, with broadcasts of two music videos honoring the terrorists — in particular, Dalal Mughrabi.
Source material can be found at this site.
