A banal report in the al-Ayyam newspaper earlier this month, on the start of a soccer tournament in the Palestinian Authority, revealed far more than all of the well-covered public press conferences held by Arafat, Abu Mazen, Abu Alaa, et al. According to the report, each of the 24 soccer teams taking part is named for a well-known Arab terrorist and the tournament itself enjoys high-profile sponsorship by Yasser Arafat, Saeb Erekat, Jibril Rajoub, PA mufti Ikrama Sabri and other senior PA officials.
As noted by PMW, among those honored are Yichya Ayyash, the first Hamas bomb-belt engineer, Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist woman who hijacked a bus, killing 36, in 1978, Abu Ali Mustafa, the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Izz a-Din al-Kassam, the name of the suicide bombers’ wing of the Hamas and a pre-state Arab terrorist, Raed Karmi, commander of the suicide bomber wing of Fatah in Tul Karem, Hassan Salam, involved in the 1974 Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes, Abu Jihad, PLO leader, Thabit Thabit, Head of the Tanzim terror group in Tul Karem, Jamal Mansour of Hamas, and more.
Marcus comments, “Presenting terrorists as heroes and role models is common practice in the PA. In January, PMW reported on the soccer tournament for 12-year-old boys named after Abd al-Baset Odeh, the suicide terrorist who killed 30 at the Passover Seder in April 2002. ...[T]his event is significant as Yasser Arafat and 13 PA leaders have prominently put their names behind this. In addition, it is at the very time the PA is actively courting world leaders to continue promoting the Road Map, based on the premise that the PA has reformed and now rejects terrorism.”
In another report from PMW, it is shown how the official PA daily al-Hayat al-Jadida decided to mark not the end of three years of the Arab assault on Israel,
but rather the start of the fourth year of ‘squeezing the Israelis’ through violence.
The September 30th edition of the newspaper carried a cartoon marked, “The Palestinian Intifada enters its fourth year”, which both celebrates the Israeli losses and suffering of the past three years and cheers the beginning of the next year of violence. It depicts an Israeli squirming in pain, trapped in the fist of an Arab arm. The arm has three full-sized muscles, representing the three years of Israeli suffering, and a fourth small one just beginning to grow.”
As noted by PMW, among those honored are Yichya Ayyash, the first Hamas bomb-belt engineer, Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist woman who hijacked a bus, killing 36, in 1978, Abu Ali Mustafa, the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Izz a-Din al-Kassam, the name of the suicide bombers’ wing of the Hamas and a pre-state Arab terrorist, Raed Karmi, commander of the suicide bomber wing of Fatah in Tul Karem, Hassan Salam, involved in the 1974 Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes, Abu Jihad, PLO leader, Thabit Thabit, Head of the Tanzim terror group in Tul Karem, Jamal Mansour of Hamas, and more.
Marcus comments, “Presenting terrorists as heroes and role models is common practice in the PA. In January, PMW reported on the soccer tournament for 12-year-old boys named after Abd al-Baset Odeh, the suicide terrorist who killed 30 at the Passover Seder in April 2002. ...[T]his event is significant as Yasser Arafat and 13 PA leaders have prominently put their names behind this. In addition, it is at the very time the PA is actively courting world leaders to continue promoting the Road Map, based on the premise that the PA has reformed and now rejects terrorism.”
In another report from PMW, it is shown how the official PA daily al-Hayat al-Jadida decided to mark not the end of three years of the Arab assault on Israel,
The September 30th edition of the newspaper carried a cartoon marked, “The Palestinian Intifada enters its fourth year”, which both celebrates the Israeli losses and suffering of the past three years and cheers the beginning of the next year of violence. It depicts an Israeli squirming in pain, trapped in the fist of an Arab arm. The arm has three full-sized muscles, representing the three years of Israeli suffering, and a fourth small one just beginning to grow.”