The Park Hotel attack
The Park Hotel attackIsrael news photo: (file)

The Palestinian Authority, which insists it does not incite for violence against Israel, has offered a grisly reminder of the 2002 massacre of Jews at a Passover Seder by honoring the terrorist who carried out the murders as Jews around the world begin celebrating Passover next week.

The suicide bomb attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya on March 27, 2002 killed 30 people, most of them elderly Jews, and wounded dozens of others.

Issa Karake, the Palestinian Authority Minister of Prisoners' Affairs, visited the family of Hamas suicide-bomb mastermind Abbas Al-Sayed, awarding them with an official, festive plaque, in celebration of the anniversary of the massacre.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry noted that the award was delivered “despite an often-voiced Palestinian commitment to end the glorification of terrorists and incitement to violence.

In recent weeks, the Palestinian Authority leadership named a youth soccer competition in Ramallah after Wafa Idris, the first female suicide bomber. It also named a square in the neighboring city of El Bireh, as well as two schools and a summer camp, in honor of Dalal Mughrabi, commander of the March 11, 1978 massacre of 38 bus passengers on Israel's coastal road.

The PA has honored Mughrabi several times the past two years for the most deadly terrorist attack on Israeli civilians since the re-establishment of the Jewish State in 1948.

The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) said that Karake, the PA Minister of Prisoner Affairs, chose International Women's and Mother's Day in the Arab World to emphasize the "achievements" of terrorists like Mughrabi and Darin Abu Aisha, who carried out a suicide bombing attack at a checkpoint in 2002.

Last month, hours before he condemned a deadly bomb blast near the Jerusalem Central Bus Station killed one woman, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad praised Arab terrorists in a speech.

"I condemn this terror operation,” Fayyad said after the Jerusalem bombing, but PMW reported that the day before, the Palestinian Authority prime minister opened his weekly radio address by praising women suicide terrorists in honor of Mother’s Day.

Fayyad said, “On this occasion…I do not forget our righteous Shahid (martyr) mothers, the mothers who are prisoners of freedom, and the mothers who have been injured or expelled.”

He specifically mentioned the suicide terrorist involved in four attacks between 2001 and 2003 in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Rishon LeTzion, located on the southern edge of metropolitan Tel Aviv.