A Jordanian parliamentarian has openly declared his support for suicide bombings in Israel.

The lawmaker, Yahya Al-Saud, serves as chairman of the Palestine Committee of the Jordanian Parliament. He made his comments in an interview with a Palestinian Arab website as he visiting Ramallah as part of a delegation of Jordanian parliamentarians.

The interview was posted on the Donia Al-Watan website on November 9, and was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Al-Saud acknowledged in the interview that Fatah is the sole representative of the Palestinian people but added, “I do support the option of resistance. The resistance must continue to be a strategic option for all the Arabs.”

Asked whether he was referring to armed resistance or to peaceful resistance, he stated, “Both armed and peaceful.” The interviewer then asked, “Do you support martyrdom bombing operations in Israel?”

“If the purpose of these martyrdom operations in Israel is to defend Palestine and its people, then yes, I support these operations,” Al-Saud replied.

Al-Saud is already infamous for the incident in which he invited MK Oren Hazan (Likud) to a fight at the Allenby Border Crossing between Israel and Jordan.

Hazan had stated that he intended to go meet Al-Saud, but Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu forbade Hazan from participating in the duel, and the Jordanian MP himself ultimately chickened out of the match.

Jordan is one of two Arab countries, along with Egypt, to have signed a peace treaty with Israel.

But the country’s parliament, which is made up mostly of Islamists, remains anti-Israel and its members have more than once called to annul the peace treaty.

Prior to the non-duel between Al-Saud and Hazan, a Jordanian MP praised soldier Ahmed Daqamseh, who in 1997 shot dead seven Israeli schoolgirls, saying he was a hero because he was retaliating against Israel and the teenage girls were “enemies.”

In another recent incident, the speaker of Jordan’s House of Representatives, Atef Tarawneh, praised the terror attack on the Temple Mount in which two Druze police officers were murdered.