IDF veterans’ and reservists groups expressed outrage this week, following the discovery of a street named after PLO chief and arch terrorist Yasser Arafat – inside of the State of Israel.
Liran Baruch, a former IDF combat soldier wounded in the line of duty, discovered Yasser Arafat Street recently in the Israeli Arab town of Jatt in central Israel.
“A friend of mine who was on his way to reserve duty near the village noticed on Waze [a GPS navigation application] a street named after Yasser Arafat. He pointed this out to me, and I wrote a post on Facebook about it and notified the CEO of the Im Tirtzu organization,” Baruch told Channel 10.
“I represent a group of people who were wounded during combat operations – I myself was wounded in Kalandia. The other people who put up the post with me are Oran Ohr, a former undercover officer in the Border Police, and Rafael Shein, who was in Orav Golani veterans organization.”
Arafat, who founded the Fatah terrorist organization in 1959, led the PLO, an umbrella organization of anti-Israel terror groups, from 1969 until his death in 2004.
Born in Egypt in 1929, Arafat spent most of his life at the helm of organizations dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and directed numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians and military personnel.
“Arafat murdered more Israelis than the number of Americans Bin Laden murdered,” said Baruch.
Following the discovery, an Interior Ministry spokesperson clarified that the street name was not recognized by the government, and had been adopted by the Jatt local council.
“The Ministry did not approve the Jatt local council’s [request] to name a street after Yasser Arafat; no such request was even sent to the Ministry.”