PA students are read letter glorifying terror written by terrorist murderer

PA students are read letter glorifying terror

written by terrorist murderer

• PA Ministry of Education had letter by terrorist Marwan Barghouti read to all students in all PA schools

• Letter instructs that studies and terror go together

• Marwan Barghouti is serving 5 life sentences for orchestrating 3 shooting attacks in which 5 people were murdered

• Fatah praises terrorist

Itamar Marcus

Click to read on our website

In line with the Palestinian Authority's policy of teaching children to see terrorists as heroes and all violence as internationally accepted means to confront Israel, the PA Ministry of Education decided that a letter by imprisoned terrorist Marwan Barghouti should be read to all "students of Palestine."

Marwan Barghouti is serving 5 life sentences for orchestrating three shooting attacks that killed 5 people in 2001-2002.

Barghouti's dominant messages in the letter are that the imprisoned terrorists are the students' heroes and role models and that studies and terror go together. 

Referring to himself as "the great prisoner and the free man," Barghouti addressed "all the young people of Palestine" presenting himself and his fellow imprisoned terrorists and murderers who "have already chosen the path of resistance" as examples to follow. 

While he emphasized that studying and acquiring knowledge is a way of "resisting," even while in prison, Barghouti focused on his personal experiences as a prisoner: "I was arrested for the first time when I was in high school... Imprisoned for more than 23 years, expelled for seven years, and subjected to pursuit and assassination..." He then concluded: "I say this to you in order to emphasize to you that the path of studies and the national path go side by side" - the national path being his euphemism for violence, terror, and murder. Barghouti underlined how he himself has been able to study while imprisoned:

"Your brothers the prisoners have already chosen the path of resistance to the apartheid and occupation regime, and I say to you that in order to be creative in resisting the colonialist, we must be creative in our studies, education, and culture. I say to you - I was arrested for the first time when I was in high school, I took the matriculation exams in prison, and continued on the path of study and obtained a bachelor's degree, master's degree, and doctorate. This was despite being imprisoned for more than 23 years, expelled for seven years, and subjected to pursuit and assassination attempts. I say this to you in order to emphasize to you that the path of studies and the national path go side by side, and that education is the key to change in the battle of the peoples and nations."

Barghouti presented the imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and murderers as heroes, who sacrificed everything for "Palestine" and the "just and noble cause":

"These colonialists (i.e., Israel) wanted the prison to constitute a graveyard for the fighters, but the prisoners, with their resolve and willpower, have stood against the hangman and the jailor and turned the prison into a station for renewing the strength, strengthening of the [sense of] belonging, and deepening of the experience. The secret of the resolve, perseverance, and energy is in our deep belief in the justice of the matter for which we are fighting and sacrificing, as Palestine is among the most just and noble causes of our time. Therefore, we sacrifice all that we possess with happiness and joy so that our land will be free and sovereign, as the free and sovereign homeland is what gives meaning to dignity and honor."

 [Israeli Arab website, Arab 48, April 17, 2017]

At a "mass support rally" for the prisoners in the PA Ministry of Education plaza, PA Minister of Education Dr. Sabri Saidam "emphasized the education system's standing by the side of the heroic prisoners and its support for them in the battle that they are waging against the occupation." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 18, 2017]

In advance of Prisoner's Day, the minister explained the event of the letter reading at the schools:

"These events [of Prisoner's Day] will include reading the letter written by brother fighter Marwan Barghouti to the schools before the students at the morning assembly after raising the flag and playing the national anthem, and this will be in all of the Palestinian schools in the homeland and abroad. Likewise, all of the students will hold a symbolic hunger strike for an hour at the start of the school day."

[Donia Al-Watan, independent Palestinian news agency, April 13, 2017]

The PA's support for terrorist Marwan Barghouti is not new. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA is trying to whitewash his crimes by passing him on as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. 

PMW has documented that the PA educational values that are taught to children include glorification of terrorists and promotion of violence. Click to read PMW's report on PA education.

Fatah and Fatah officials have also expressed their support of Marwan Barghouti and the hunger-striking terrorists. Here are some examples:

Fatah's parliamentary faction called terrorists Barghouti "a shining and renewing flame of struggle" and praised him and the other imprisoned terrorists:

"Prisoner Barghouti, who has begun his 16th year in prison, still constitutes a shining and renewing flame of struggle, and together with his comrades is heading an epic of resolve and heroism in the face of the captivity, the jailors, the occupation's injustice, and the ongoing oppression of our heroic prisoners and our people everywhere." 

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 16, 2017]

Fatah's Shabiba student movement created a poster for the elections at An-Najah University, which shows a rifle and a picture of Marwan Barghouti making the "V" for victory with his handcuffed hands. 

Text to right of rifle: "2 - the number [to vote for Fatah] in the elections"

Text on the rifle: "The Martyrs' (Shahids') cell"

Text at bottom: 

"[Fatah's] Shabiba Student Movement

The university of siege and victory [An-Najah University]

[Official Fatah Facebook page, April 14, 2017]

Fatah Movement Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi said in a press statement: 

"The Fatah Movement sends greetings of respect and admiration to all of our heroic prisoners without exception, as well as a special greeting to Fatah Movement Central Committee member fighter Marwan Barghouti ..., fighter Karim Younes (i.e., terrorist, murdered 1) who is entering his 35th year in the Israeli prisons, fighter Fuad Al-Shubaki (i.e., senior PA official who tried to smuggle weapons), Nael Barghouti (i.e., terrorist, murdered 1), and all of the prisoners in all of the detention centers.'"

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 7, 2017]

Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki also singled out Marwan Barghouti for praise:

"For the campaign and events of solidarity with the prisoners Zaki sent greetings of appreciation to leader prisoner Marwan Barghouti and all of the heroic prisoners and praised their role in the national struggle and their ability to give despite the darkness of the prisons and their suffering." 

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 12, 2017]

Fatah also glorified Barghouti with another post on Facebook with Barghouti's picture and a quote:  

 
Posted text: "'I will say to the members of our people after I salute them, hold their hands, and kiss their foreheads: I have not weakened in my [prison] cell, and my shoulders have not fallen. I am loyal to the path and oath, to the path of the Martyrs (Shahids) and prisoners, and to the path of the fighting people. We will be released, we will triumph, and we will return, and our meeting is soon'

Marwan Barghouti"

[Official Fatah Facebook page, April 7, 2017]

The following is a longer excerpt of terrorist Barghouti's letter to PA students as it appeared on the Israeli Arab website, Arab 48:

Headline: "From Barghouti to the students of Palestine: 'Knowledge is your weapon to liberate the homeland'"

"Fatah Movement Central Committee member and member of the PA Parliament (Legislative Council) prisoner Marwan Barghouti (i.e., terrorist who orchestrated three shooting attacks in which 5 were murdered), ... who is serving 5 life sentences, sent a letter from within the prison to all the young people of Palestine, and to the students in particular, in which it is stated: 'I write this letter to you from my small cell, which is small for the great prisoner and the free man. However, the chains that bind the body cannot bind the willpower, as the soul is nurtured by the love of the land of Palestine and its people.' ... 

'... The Palestinian prisoner has succeeded in turning the prison into a base for the struggle, contemplation, culture, strengthening of the willpower, and deepening of the [sense of] belonging. These colonialists wanted the prison to constitute a graveyard for the fighters, but the prisoners, with their resolve and willpower, have stood against the hangman and the jailor and turned the prison into a station for renewing the strength, strengthening of the [sense of] belonging, and deepening of the experience. The secret of the resolve, perseverance, and energy is in our deep belief in the justice of the matter for which we are fighting and sacrificing, as Palestine is among the most just and noble causes of our time. Therefore, we sacrifice all that we possess with happiness and joy so that our land will be free and sovereign, as the free and sovereign homeland is what gives meaning to dignity and honor.'

Barghouti added: 'The struggle for freedom is of the highest order, and is even the pinnacle of human sentiment. Our mighty people is carrying out resistance (i.e., PA euphemism for terror and violence) and has been fighting for more than 100 years. It has ignited rebellions, intifadas, and popular uprisings (i.e., term includes the use of violence), and resisted in every way. There are many ways to resist the colonialist - knowledge, culture, literature, art, fiction, poetry, drawing, music, popular folklore, heritage, working the land and agriculture, building schools, universities, and institutes, producing national products, boycotting Israeli merchandise, and exposing the occupation's crimes.'

He continued: 'My dear male and female students, my dear children, when you read this letter I will be in solitary confinement, in a place the rays of the sun do not enter. I will be alone, but every morning anthem you sing will reach my ears. We are waging the battle for freedom and dignity with an unlimited hunger strike; and this is the prisoners' weapon, just as knowledge is your weapon to liberate your homeland and your people. This is because the path to the freedom of our land is hard and long, as freedom is the supreme value of peoples and human dignity, and the struggle for freedom is the realization of the greatest meanings of freedom itself. Your brothers the prisoners have already chosen the path of resistance to the apartheid and occupation regime, and I say to you that in order to be creative in resisting the colonialist, we must be creative in our studies, education, and culture. I say to you - I was arrested for the first time when I was in high school, I took the matriculation exams in prison, and continued on the path of study and obtained a bachelor's degree, master's degree, and doctorate. This was despite being imprisoned for more than 23 years, expelled for seven years, and subjected to pursuit and assassination attempts. I say this to you in order to emphasize to you that the path of studies and the national path go side by side, and that education is the key to change in the battle of the peoples and nations. What I mean is modern education, which provides wide room for scientific professions and philosophy, teaches the children critical thinking, and strengthens the mentality of dialogue, accepting the other, partnership, pluralism, freedom of opinion, thought, and faith, and personal freedoms, in light of the fact that [this mentality] constitutes the true realization and greatest expression of the freedom of the peoples, nations, and homelands.'

In conclusion, Barghouti said in his letter: 'I and my brother prisoners who are waging an unlimited hunger strike call on you to express your solidarity and write in your notebooks 10 times every day: 'Freedom and dignity for Palestine.' Allow me to also shake the hand of every one of you and to kiss your pure hands and raised foreheads. I say to you as our Palestinian poet Tawfiq Ziyad from Nazareth said: 'The prison cell has not weakened me and my shoulders have not fallen, but rather I will remain upright with the flag of Palestine in my hand waving high until freedom, return, independence, and dignity are achieved.'"

[Israeli Arab website, Arab 48, April 17, 2017]

The terms "all means," "peaceful uprising/resistance," and "popular uprising/resistance" are often used by PA leaders to refer to events that include violence and deadly terror against Israeli civilians such as rock-throwing, stabbings and even shootings. See Mahmoud Abbas' reference to murderous terror as "peaceful" during the 2015-2016 terror wave ("The Knife Intifada"), which included numerous stabbings, shootings and car ramming attacks in which 40 people were killed (36 Israelis, 1 Palestinian, 2 Americans and 1 Eritrean) and hundreds wounded: http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=16437

Headline: "Al-Qawasmi: Fatah stands behind the freedom prisoners' cause"

"The Fatah Movement praised the resolve of the brave prisoners behind the occupation's bars. It emphasized that it stands united behind them, and particularly behind those who will hold an unlimited hunger strike on Palestinian Prisoner's Day on April 17 [2017].

[Fatah] Movement Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi said in a press statement: 'The prisoners' cause was and will remain on the list of priorities of the Fatah Movement and the national leadership, led by [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas, the general leader of the movement.' ...

Al-Qawasmi added: 'All of the steps that Israel is carrying out against our brave prisoners are war crimes. The Fatah Movement sends greetings of respect and admiration to all of our heroic prisoners without exception, as well as a special greeting to Fatah Movement Central Committee member fighter Marwan Barghouti (i.e., terrorist who orchestrated three shooting attacks in which 5 were murdered), fighter Karim Younes (i.e., terrorist, murdered 1) who is entering his 35th year in the Israeli prisons, fighter Fuad Al-Shubaki (i.e., senior PA official who tried to smuggle weapons), Nael Barghouti (i.e., terrorist, murdered 1), and all of the prisoners in all of the detention centers.'"

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 7, 2017]

Karim Younes - an Israeli Arab serving a 40-year sentence for kidnapping and killing Israeli soldier Avraham Bromberg in 1980 together with his cousin Maher Younes. Originally sentenced to life in prison, but Israeli President Shimon Peres reduced his sentence in 2012.

Fuad Al-Shubaki - a senior PA official who is serving a 20-year prison term. He was behind the attempt to smuggle 50 tons of illegal weapons to the Palestinian Authority aboard the Karine A weapons' ship in 2002.

Nael and Fakhri Barghouti - Palestinian terrorists who killed an Israeli army officer in January 1978, near Ramallah. Both were sentenced to life but were released in the Shalit prisoner exchange deal in 2011. Nael Barghouti was arrested again in 2014 for violating the terms of his release by offering Hamas to serve as its minister of prisoners' affairs, and is serving a life sentence plus an additional 18 years.

Headline: "The Fatah parliamentary faction: Marwan Barghouti is still a shining and renewing flame of resolve and struggle"

"The Fatah parliamentary faction said in a statement for the 15th anniversary of the arrest of leader, [PA] Parliament member, prisoner, and Fatah Central Committee member Marwan Barghouti (i.e., terrorist who orchestrated three shooting attacks in which 5 were murdered): 'Prisoner Barghouti, who has begun his 16th year in prison, still constitutes a shining and renewing flame of struggle, and together with his comrades is heading an epic of resolve and heroism in the face of the captivity, the jailors, the occupation's injustice, and the ongoing oppression of our heroic prisoners and our people everywhere.'

The Fatah faction sent its regards and pride to leader Parliament member Barghouti and to all of the heroic male and female prisoners who will begin a new epic of resolve and heroism in a few days when they go on a hunger strike against the Israeli occupation and its racist policy of oppression, which denies the rights of the prisoners and the rights of our Palestinian people."

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 16, 2017]

Headline: "The reading of leadership member prisoner Marwan Barghouti's letter in the schools, and the [PA] Ministry of Education expresses solidarity with the prisoners' dignity"

"The [PA] Ministry of Education and Higher Education organized a mass support rally [for the prisoners] in the ministry plaza, in which [PA] Minister [of Education] Dr. Sabri Saidam, Deputy Minister [of Education] Dr. Basri Saleh, the minister's aides, and all of the ministry employees participated.

In this context, Saidam emphasized the education system's standing by the side of the heroic prisoners and its support for them in the battle that they are waging against the occupation in order to defend their dignity and achieve all of their rights. He added: 'Leadership member Marwan Barghouti (i.e., terrorist who orchestrated three shooting attacks in which 5 were murdered) and all of the prisoners are emphasizing that we are one people that refuses to be broken, and which has grown accustomed to not breaking.' He praised the education system that always proves its loyalty to the national causes, including the prisoners' cause.

Saleh read leadership member Marwan Barghouti's speech (i.e., letter) addressed to the school students, and emphasized the loyalty of the education system, in all of its parts, to the prisoners and its standing by their side in this heroic battle.

In the same context, students of all the Palestinian schools made calls of support for the prisoners in the battle that they are waging in order to achieve all of their rights. Likewise, the morning assembly in all of the schools included many sections of support for the prisoners, including reading leadership member prisoner Marwan Barghouti's letter addressed to the school students. The students also held a symbolic hunger strike for an hour as a message of support for the prisoners in their heroic battle."

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 18, 2017]

Headline: "Saidam: We in the [PA] Ministry of Education have decided to join the strike as a sign of solidarity with the prisoners"

"The [PA] Ministry of Education and Higher Education today [April 13, 2017] announced its joining the unlimited hunger strike of the prisoners in the occupation's prisons by holding a series of activities and events of solidarity with the prisoners on Monday, April 17, 2017, which is Prisoner's Day.

In this context, [PA] Minister of Education and Higher Education [and Fatah Central Committee Deputy Secretary] Dr. Sabri Saidam emphasized that... these events will include reading the letter written by brother fighter Marwan Barghouti (i.e., terrorist who orchestrated three shooting attacks in which 5 were murdered) to the schools before the students at the morning assembly after raising the flag and playing the national anthem, and this will be in all of the Palestinian schools in the homeland and abroad. Likewise, all of the students will hold a symbolic hunger strike for an hour at the start of the school day."

[Donia Al-Watan, independent Palestinian news agency, April 13, 2017]

Marwan Barghouti - Palestinian terrorist who is serving 5 life sentences for orchestrating three shooting attacks that killed 5 people: one attack in Jerusalem (June 12, 2001) in which Greek monk Tsibouktsakis Germanus was murdered by terrorist Ismail Radaida and another unidentified terrorist, another attack at a gas station in Givat Zeev near Jerusalem (Jan. 15, 2002) in which Yoela Hen, 45, was murdered by terrorists led by Mohammed Matla, and one  shooting and stabbing attack at the Sea Food Market restaurant in Tel Aviv (March 5, 2002) in which Eli Dahan, 53, Yosef Habi, 52, and Police Officer Sergeant-Major Salim Barakat, 33, were murdered by terrorist Ibrahim Hasouna. When arrested by Israel in 2002, Barghouti headed the Tanzim (Fatah terror faction). After he was convicted and imprisoned, he was re-elected member of the Palestinian Authority parliament. On Dec. 4, 2016, he was elected to Fatah's Central Committee.

Interview with Palestinian Monster By: Palestinian Media Watch

Issa Abd Rabbo: “There was supposed to be a military operation shooting at a bus transporting Israeli soldiers… I was surprised when on my way to the area, I waited, waited and waited and the bus didn’t come. I was forced to carry out an operation on my own, an improvisation, I took it upon myself. An Israeli car approached, with two in it. I said, here’s a chance and I don’t want to return empty-handed. They left the car… and walked towards the valley, and sat down under a pine tree. I went down to them. Of course I was masked and was carrying a rifle. He asked me: Are you a guard here? I told him: ‘No, I’m in my home.’ I told him: ‘You are not allowed here. This is our land and our country. You stole it and occupied our land and I’m going to act against you.’ They were surprised by what I told them. I tied them up of course and then sentenced them to death by shooting, in the name of the revolution. I shot them, one bullet each, and went [hiding] in the mountains… I went to my aunt and told her: ‘We have avenged Muhammad’s blood.’” Host: “She is the mother of Martyr Muhammad Abd Rabbo.” Issa Abd Rabbo: “I told her: ‘Instead of one, we got two.’ She cried out in joy.” [Independent Palestinian news agency Ma'an TV, Jan. 9, 2014]

PMW: PA promotes murder as positive act at cultural event At official PA event under the auspices of Abbas, a play ended with killing of all the "Israelis" and the cold-blooded murder of a Palestinian "spy," to the cheers of the Palestinian audience by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

At a Palestinian Authority event under the auspices of Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, with the participation of the Minister of Culture, the Palestinian Authority portrayed murder as a positive act.



The event started with PA Minister of Culture Anwar Abu Aisha honoring a number of released terrorist murderers by inviting them on stage and awarding them PA plaques of honor. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA uses cultural events to honor terrorists.

Later in the program, a play was performed by Palestinian youth. The play opens with young actors who are divided into two rival camps of Hamas and Fatah supporters. Eventually they throw away their Fatah and Hamas flags, uniting under the PA flag. Then they shoot and kill all the "Israelis." Among the dead bodies of the Israelis, they find a Palestinian who had been spying for Israel.

The "spy" begs for his life. However, the Palestinian leader makes him kneel down and shoots him in the head.

In response to the staged murder, the audience erupts in applause and whistles. The united Fatah and Hamas group salute their leader - the murderer - who marches around with the Palestinian flag.

PA Minister of Culture Anwar Abu Aisha hands plaque to released murderer Muhammad Nasr.

PA Minister of Culture Anwar Abu Aisha shakes hand of released murderer Asrar Samrin.

Click to view

The plaques of honor given to the released terrorist murderers showed a map of "Palestine," denying the existence of Israel.

At a Fatah event in 2009, a skit also portrayed the rivalry between Fatah and Hamas. Students belonging to the two organizations argued over which organization was greater and which had done the most to fight Israel. Hamas students boasted the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, while Fatah students boasted the lynch in Ramallah in 2000 in which two Israeli soldiers were brutally murdered.







The following is the transcript of the play that was broadcast on PA TV Live:

Girl: "[Fatah and Hamas], unify your ranks. Palestine is calling you. Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is calling you. Haifa, Acre, Jaffa, Lod, Tiberias, Ramle and Safed (all are cities in Israel) all of Palestine is calling you from the river to the deep sea (i.e., all of Israel)..."
Boy: "Do you remember this guy that you saw here? He's a traitor, a damn spy. In life, it's either victory or Martyrdom death for Allah..."
[Palestinians shoot Israelis and capture the spy. The spy begs for his life. The spy is murdered and audience applauds.]

PA TV ad announcing this event:"Under the auspices of Mahmoud Abbas, Ramallah's Youth Club is honored to invite you to the 5th Festival of the Heritage of the Fathers"

[Official PA TV Live, Dec. 9, 2013]

Descriptions of the released terrorist prisoners, pictured above:

Asrar Samrin - was serving a life sentence for the murder of Israeli citizen Tzvi Klein (Dec. 3,1991), but was released in October 2013 as one of 104 terrorists whom Israel agreed to release to fulfill the PA's precondition for renewing negotiations.

Muhammad Nasr and Rafe' Karajeh murdered reserve soldier Aharon Avidar in a Ramallah market in February 1985. He was serving a life sentence, but was released in October 2013 as one of 104 terrorists whom Israel agreed to release to fulfill the PA's precondition for renewing negotiations.

ELDER OF ZIYON: Mahmoud Abbas' heroes

Fatah: Tapuah Junction stabber ‘a hero’Organization’s Facebook page congratulates Salam As’ad Zaghal, who murdered Evyatar Borowsky, a 31-year-old father of five

http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/uploads/2013/04/f130430fflm08-635x357.jpg

Fatah party representatives praised as a hero a Palestinian attacker who stabbed an Israeli to death at a West Bank junction on Tuesday.

The organization posted pictures from the scene of the attack on its official Facebook page, accompanying each image with a caption boasting of the stabber’s “success.” Officials also expressed hope that he would be quickly released from prison.

“The settler who was killed today at al-Za’atara south of Nablus by the released prisoner hero Salam As’ad Zaghal from the city of Tulkarem,” read a caption beneath a picture of Evyatar Borowsky, a 31-year-old father of five who was stabbed to death by Zaghal earlier Tuesday at Tapuah junction.

Another photograph on the group’s Facebook page showed a portrait of Zaghal with an illustration of an AK-47 rifle beneath his head. “Peace be with you the day of your birth, on the day of your imprisonment and on the day of your freedom,” the caption wished the terrorist.

Zaghal was released from Israeli prison last month after serving a three-year term for throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, as well as other criminal offenses. Israeli security officials estimated that Zaghal’s attack may have been carried out in order to establish his credentials as a loyal Palestinian, after his brother was tried by a Palestinian Authority court Monday for allegedly collaborating with Israel.

Friends of Evyatar Borowsky were shocked by the news of his death. “He was a talented man who always laughed about everything,” Oshri Maimon, the director of the Erel theater group of which Borowsky was a member, told Ynet Tuesday. “He had quite a personality.”

“I remember Evyatar was always welcoming, always with a smile,” Borowski’s high school rabbi, Nesiel Ben-Tov, told Ynet. “He was a student with lots of good traits and love for others. He never did anything problematic.”

Following the deadly attack, the Israeli Almagor Terror Victims Association called on Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon to restate Israel’s defense policy in the West Bank and issue explicit orders to open fire on rock-throwing Palestinians.

“Central Command is responding to a wholesale ‘intifada’ by the Palestinians with the tools of low-intensity warfare,” Almagor CEO Meir Indor stated. “The terrorist was able to get to and murder Evyatar Borovski at an Egged bus stop solely because of soldiers’ orders to ‘go easy’ on rock throwers and let them move around freely.”

Later Tuesday, local media and human rights groups reported that retaliatory acts by settlers from Yitzhar, where Borowsky lived, and Tapuah followed the lethal stabbing. Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israeli watchdog, reported that settlers attacked and moderately injured a Palestinian farmer near the village of Furiq and uprooted some 100 olive trees near the village of Qaryut.

Six settlers were arrested in connection with the violence.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Mujahideen movement, an Islamist offshoot of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Brigades, congratulated the perpetrator of Tuesday’s fatal stabbing attack.

“We welcome any act of resistance against this corrupt enemy,” said the movement’s spokesman, Abu-Omar, in a statement published on the movement’s website.

The stabbing, the statement continued, is a “natural response to the occupation’s aggression and its continuous attacks on all things Palestinian in the West Bank.”

Palestinians Open Israeli Jail Replica To Honor Prisoners

Gaza - Palestinians opened a replica of a former Israeli prison in Gaza on Tuesday to help illuminate the plight of 4,800 kin jailed in Israel after weeks of protests that have triggered clashes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Murals of famous leaders of Palestinian militant groups who were once held in the Saraya prison decorated walls at the site, along with a leather banner listing the names of 12 detainees who died in what locals dubbed “the slaughterhouse”.

“Prisoner Day,” an annual Palestinian national rite that commemorates the detainees, is set for Wednesday and more street violence with Israeli troops is anticipated.

Palestinians view compatriots held in Israel as heroes of their struggle for statehood, whereas the Jewish state says that many are guilty of killing or hurting innocents and the detentions guarantee its security.

A hunger strike by a handful of prisoners and the deaths of two inmates in custody this year have touched off deadly clashes with Israeli security forces that some analysts say could snowball into a third Palestinian uprising.

Saraya was refurbished and opened to visitors by Waed, a prisoners’ association loyal to Hamas.

The ex-prison spans the fraught history of Palestine. It was built by British colonial authorities in 1936 only to be used in turn by Israel during its post-1967 occupation, the Palestinian Authority under a self-rule deal from 1994 and finally Hamas for a brief period after it seized control of Gaza in 2007.

Dummies of Palestinian prisoners and posters hang on the wall of the Saraya prison that was formerly used by Israeli security, in central Gaza City, Gaza Strip, 16 April 2013. The facility has now been turned into a memorial center and displays pictures and names of leaders that were imprisoned in it in the past.  EPA/ALI ALI

Many of Saraya’s original concrete cellblocks and interrogation rooms were destroyed over the years by Israeli air strikes during conflict with Palestinian militants. In their place, Waed built rows of tents it says resemble detention camps still in use in Israel’s nearby Negev desert.

“STRUGGLE”

Waed spokesman Abdallah Qandil said he hoped anger over the prisoners’ plight would lead to another “armed struggle”.

“When I came in I was overcome by the memories and the feelings of suffering prisoners are undergoing,” said Zeyad Jouda, a former detainee at Saraya who was guiding visitors.

“By being here I am conveying my story to people who are visiting to increase their solidarity with prisoners. We are trying to explain to them what detention and what the cells were like,” Jouda said, as he showed around some 40 local women.

Local authorities say 800,000 Palestinians have been detained under Israeli military orders since the 1967 war when Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

Palestinians want an independent state in those territories but negotiations with Israel have been frozen since 2010.

Allegations of torture have been directed against all of Saraya’s former gatekeepers. Most recently, the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas movements accused each other of abusing fellow Palestinians there during their bloody rivalry.

Hamas says its militant attacks were key to making Israel withdraw from Gaza in 2005 and gaining the release of over a thousand Palestinian prisoners in 2011 in exchange for an Israeli soldier it held hostage.

Visitors to the site echoed this sense of triumphalism.

Salwa al-Mashharawi froze briefly at one of the prison room windows where she used to visit her two sons when they served time there during Israel’s occupation. “I recalled the cries, the tears and the pain - but no regret,” she said as women around her chanted “God is Great!”

A Little Village in the Hills — And the Palestinian Monsters It Spawns

If you want to affect how people think about an issue, putting your case onto the cover of the New York Times Magazine must be one of the most effective things to do. And, given the intense competition, one of the hardest.

So if the editors of the NYT (108 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization; 30 million unique visitors per month to its website; the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States – according to Wikipedia) give you the cover of the prestigious Magazine, it’s a massive vote of confidence, a huge privilege, a platform of the most effective kind that (probably) can’t be bought for money.

Friends have pointed us to this week’s NYT Magazine cover story, published today. It’s devoted to a Palestinian Arab village set in the hills a few kilometers north of where we live in Jerusalem. It’s a place the author calls “spirited”, where “on warm summer evenings, life… could feel almost idyllic. Everyone knows everyone.” He says “a pilgrimage” to this magical place “has achieved a measure of cachet among young European activists, the way a stint with the Zapatistas did in Mexico in the 1990s”.

How can you not be captivated?

But there is much wrong with the picture he conjures up. We know this because for years we have been tracking the media’s romance with the community called Nabi Saleh. Sitting here and looking over the online version of it, we are furious with anger about what the article says, and what the writer and his editors carefully avoid saying.

Start with some background: the Wikipedia entry for Nabi Saleh describes the village of some 550 people in notably gentle terms. Centred on an old religious shrine to the prophet Shelah whom we encounter in Genesis as the son of Judah and grandson of the patriarch Jacob, it was a hamlet of a mere five houses in the late nineteenth century when the Turks ruled the area. It grew slowly under the Jordanian military occupation that started in 1948; then declined when Israel took control of the West Bank in 1967, and flourished and multiplied in the past two decades. Today, it’s the scene of weekly protest demonstrations and, to judge from Wikipedia’s English-language version, a place where things are done to passive inhabitants and for no apparent reason.

Now if you go to the Arabic-language version of Wikipedia, you see a quite different emphasis. It’s not at all a direct translation of the English version. It’s created by different people for a different audience and different sensibilities. The Arabic Wikipedia entry depicts Nabi Saleh as a place of “popular resistance” that boasts of having taken a prominent role in two Intifadas, providing “hundreds of prisoners” and 17 so-called “martyrs on the altar of freedom”. The most prominent of the prisoners (Wikipedia’s description) is a woman called Ahlam. Her surname is shared with almost every other inhabitant of the village: Tamimi.

But it’s Bassem Tamimi who is the focus of the article. He calls the Intifada launched by Yasser Arafat in 2000 “the big mistake… Politically, we went backward”.

The writer helps us understand what kind of backward he means:

“Much of the international good will gained over the previous decade was squandered. Taking up arms wasn’t, for Bassem, a moral error so much as a strategic one. He and everyone else I spoke with in the village insisted they had the right to armed resistance; they just don’t think it works. “

Or to say it another way: they are entitled to kill the Israelis and have done so again and again, but it’s not effective. A different kind of warfare therefore needs to be adopted.

Half-way through today’s essay, he introduces a figure who embodies that “big mistake”:

In 1993, Bassem told me, his cousin Said Tamimi killed a settler near Ramallah. Eight years later, another villager, Ahlam Tamimi escorted a bomber to a Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem. Fifteen people were killed, eight of them minors. Ahlam, who now lives in exile in Jordan, and Said, who is in prison in Israel, remain much-loved in Nabi Saleh.

That’s all he writes about Ahlam Tamimi but we can tell you more. She is a Jordanian who was 21 years old and the news-reader on official Palestinian Authority televisionwhen she signed on with Hamas to become a terrorist. She engineered, planned and helped execute a massacre in the center of Jerusalem on a hot summer afternoon in 2001. She chose the target, a restaurant filled with Jewish children. And she brought the bomb. The outcome (15 killed, a sixteenth still in a vegetative state today, 130 injured) was so uplifting to her that she has gone on camera again and again to say, smiling into the camera lens, how proud she is of what she did. She is entirely free of regret. A convicted felon and a mass-murderer convicted on multiple homicide charges, she has never denied the role she embraced and justifies it fully.

Yet all the NY Times says about Nabi Saleh’s favourite one-time resident is that she was an escort “who now lives in exile in Jordan”. Period. This is no mere oversight. The editors at the New York Times showcased this same psychopath once before, six years ago. Then, as now, we  felt someone needed to push back and we posted two blog articles: “7-Aug-07: Hot House: Cold Truths” and “28-Jun-07: About sweet-faced young women”, and got a little attention for a while. But it was clear to us that those who thought they perceived greatness of spirit in the woman continued to do so.

One of the lives she snuffed out was that of our precious daughter Malki who was fifteen years old. Malki was the kind of young woman whose life and achievementsought to have entitled her to at least a fraction of the media coverage bestowed by the NYT editors and others on the murderer.

But those editors, as well as the author of today’s Magazine piece, are evidently less affected by the innocent lives of the victims, lived and lost, than by the hypnotic power of symbolism.

About the lethal rock-hurling attacks directed at Israelis, Bassem Tamimi says

he didn’t worry over whether stone-throwing counted as violence. The question annoyed him… If the loincloth functioned as the sign of Gandhi’s resistance, of India’s nakedness in front of British colonial might, Bassem said, “Our sign is the stone.” The weekly clashes with the I.D.F. were hence in part symbolic. The stones were not just flinty yellow rocks, but symbols of defiance… The message they carried, he said, was “We don’t accept you.”

Stone-throwing as a symbol? People have been killed and (as recently as this past Thursday) critically injured by the rocks (and cement blocks and boulders) of the ‘stone’ throwers.

Perhaps “we don’t accept you” is what people living far from the scene imagine goes through the minds of baby-killers and restaurant bombers. But living where we do,innocent-sounding turns of phrase like that leave us dumbfounded.

Ahlam Tamimi’s post-massacre trajectory has been like something out of Hollywood – or perhaps the NYT Magazine. On conviction in October 2003, she was sentenced to 16 life terms in prison. The presiding judge, having heard her proudly claim credit for the killings and maimings, added for the record the view of the judicial panel that she “not be eligible for pardon by the military commander, nor to early parole by any other means”. He and his fellow judges (and my wife and I as well) were ignored when eight years later, almost to the day, she walked free as one of the 1,027 murderers and assorted other terrorists unjustly freed – not pardoned – as part of Israel’s agreement to the extortionate terms of the Gilad Shalit transaction.

She flew to Jordan the same day, was married there on live television to another freed and unpardoned murderer (a cousin, a Tamimi from Nabi Saleh), addressed rallies in various Middle East capitals, and became a media hero as the presenter of a weekly Hamas satellite television program. This is devoted to the interests of imprisoned Palestinian Arab terrorists, and broadcast from Amman to all corners of the Arabic-speaking world. Latest reports say she is preparing for the arrival of a baby. How the twists and turns of this life have impacted on her victims has never, as far as we know, been explored by any branch of the media, presumably for reasons of lack of interest. But within the Arab world, she is a celebrity.

Bassem Tamimi receives a salary from the foreign-aid-funded Palestinian Authority. But, like many thousands of other Palestinian Arabs on the massively-bloated PA payroll, he admits to the NYT Magazine that he almost never has to report to his office or do any work (while blaming this on the Israelis). The article might have pointed out, but did not, that massive servings of no-strings-attached funds paid by European governments to the terrorism-friendly PA are the reason men like Bassem Tamimi have the time and energy it takes to become a star of the New York Times and a source of videos, interviews and opinions.

His own photogenic daughter has achieved fame and influence and even been awarded a prize by one of the Middle East’s more Israel-phobic political figures for playing her part. Photos of her sticking a fist in the face of IDF servicemen in Nabi Saleh, the personification of an innocent sort of juvenile courage, are everywhere. (The NYT article mentions that she has been dubbed “Shirley Temper” in some quarters; you can see why in this video clip.) In reality, those images of defiance were captured by a horde of press agency photographers arranged by her parents. They followed the girl around as she walked up to one Israeli officer after another, hoping to provoke a camera-worthy (meaning violent) response. It never came, though not for lack of effort by the Tamimis.

She has been used in this way again and again by her parents and community; there is no shortage of collaborators among the paparazzi. Any connection between this contrived set-piece and reality is entirely accidental.

Two years ago, in the New York Review of Books, a writer launched into his experience of the same hilltop town (spelled differently, but the same place) with these words:

The first thing I saw in al-Nabi Salih was a huge sign in Arabic and English: “We Believe in Non-Violence. Do You?” It was World Peace Day, and speaker after speaker reaffirmed a commitment to peace and to nonviolent resistance to the occupation.

What kind of non-violence do these people actually espouse?

We wonder how often public opinion about the complex lives and unwanted war in which we and our neighbours live is formed by people who don’t speak the local languages, and don’t know much of its history or geography. Lacking the ability and sometimes the will to actually delve, they are left to read romanticized narratives, signs painted onto walls, political analysis crafted by full-time practitioners of public relations, staged photographs and other tendentious imagery.

The result is a kind of entrancement: messy, nasty complexity reduced down to simple pill form. Swallow this, and join us.

This process, of the kind that an astute observer has called auto-stupefaction, has an antidote: reality. We wish there were enough courageous and ethical journalists to deliver what has not yet been done: a blunt look directly into the face and deeds of Ahlam Tamimi and those who share her views, who admire her demonic actions.

That the NYT Magazine focused on Nabi Saleh while barely mentioning the convicted child killer celebrated by the residents of the town as an honored daughter (Arabic Wikipedia) indicates how manipulated its readers are. Also: how far we are from beginning to blunt the ongoing threat of the terrorists.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.

Poster honoring terrorists from Beit Shean attack in which 4 were killed: Text: "Glory to the heroes of Beit Shean, the pride of the Palestinian revolution"

PMW: Poster glorifying terrorists of the Ma'alot massacre in 1974, which killed 22 children and 4 adults

Abbas: 'Mufti is My Hero' Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas spoke glowingly last Friday of the “legacy” of infamous Nazi collaborator Hajj Amin al-Husseini,

Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas spoke glowingly last Friday of the “legacy” of the infamous Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who was a collaborator with the Nazis, and was prepared to conduct the mass murder of the Jews of the Land of Israel in the event of a Nazi invasion. The Mufti, Abbas said, was a great man whose ways should be emulated by all PA Arabs, and was worthy of great praise.

Speaking to Arutz Sheva, David Bedein, the director of the Makor Yisraeli news agency and the Center for Middle East Research, said that Abbas made the comments during a Fatah march in Gaza last Friday. It was the first time in years that Fatah terrorists had been given permission by Hamas to march, and Abbas spoke to the marchers via video feed.

Abbas, Bedein said, wrote his doctorate at the University of Moscow on how the World Zionist Organization, not the Nazis, was responsible for the destruction of European Jewry. Given this, Abbas's praise of the Mufti, the ultimate “Arab Nazi,” was very serious, and needed to be publicized, he said. The Mufti was also the antecedent of Fatah, which Abbas is currently chairman of.

After the Mufti was forced by the British to leave Mandatory Palestine, he took up residence in Europe, and met Hitler in Italy. The two agreed that Hitler would murder the Jews of Europe, and that he, the Mufti, would organize the murder of the Jews of the Middle East, when the time was ripe. During the war, the Mufti broadcast pro-Nazi propaganda in Arabic from Berlin. Later he reached Cairo, where he was one of the founders of the Arab League, which adopted the pact between the Mufti and Hitler as a basic document of the organization.

Bedein also slammed the Israeli media for ignoring Abbas' speech praising the Mufti. Bedein said he received information about the speech from PA Arabs who heard it themselves. He sent the information about the speech to Israeli media, but they were apparently not interested, he said. Bedein said that he also sent the data to President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett, but none of them have responding privately or publicly yet.

Hamas' "majestic parade" missing an important component

Yesterday, on the first anniversary of the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap, Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades staged aparade that they labeled "majestic" in the streets of Gaza City, as scores of SUVs filled with masked terrorists with machine guns and RPGs passed by:

What is missing?

No one is watching the parade!

No throngs of families crowded on the sidewalks cheering on their favorite celebrity terrorists. No stands of officials greeting the incoming brave jihadists. Nothing.

This becomes very obvious when you watch the video:

There is one other thing  that other parades have that this one seemed to lack: the leaders of the group throwing the parade, in the open.

What happens when you stage a parade and nobody comes?

You issue press releases saying that the parade brought " joy and happiness the people of the Gaza Strip!"

(Now, if the IDF had decided to drop a few guided bombs on all these celebrating jihadists, that would be a compelling video!)