Palestinian Authority: Honoring mass murder of children

The Palestinian Authority supposedly qualifies as a partner for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but in fact promotes and lionizes terrorists. What other conclusion can come from an official state-funded newspaper putting a picture of Alaa Abu Dheim on their front page with the honorific “Shahid” (Martyr)? Abu Dheim won this title by gunning down unarmed high-school students in a hail of hundreds of bullets:

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Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s official daily newspaper has honored the terrorist who gunned down eight high school students at point blank range with the status of shahid, or holy Islamic martyr.

The March 8th edition of the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida prominently placed a picture of the terrorist on the front page, with the caption, “The Shahid Alaa Abu Dheim.” In a page one article on the massacre at the Mercaz HaRav Kook Yeshiva, his crime was again defined as an act of martyrdom (shahada).

Can one imagine a politician in the US hailing Seung-Hui Cho as a martyr? What would the Western press say about a Marine or a soldier in Iraq if he deliberately shot eight high-school students? They’d tear him to pieces; if his picture appeared at all, it wouldn’t have any honorifics preceding or following it.

Jim at Gateway Pundit says, “Someone really should show this to Condoleezza Rice.” My friend Scott Johnson at Power Line wonders whether President Bush understands that the money the US sends to Mahmoud Abbas winds up supporting terrorism instead of fighting it. Given that the funds for this publication come from the same organization we subsidize, it’s a fair question. Is this what our money buys — a celebration of the mass murder of children?

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We have tried to bargain with Palestinian terrorists for decades. They have reciprocated by aligning themselves with Iran in some cases and continuing their terrorism independently in others. The US has gotten pressed into this position by its European allies, which continue to see Israel as the problem. We need to show them this newspaper and announce that we will pull all support for Abbas and instead fortify the Israelis in order for them to conduct the war that Abbas and Hamas apparently want so badly. That’s infinitely preferable to giving even one cent in support to officials who celebrate the likes of Abu Dheim.

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