The Palestinian Authority's Terrorist Glorification

by IPT News  •  May 4, 2010 at 9:28 am

http://www.investigativeproject.org/1927/the-palestinian-authoritys-terrorist-glorification

A new report by an Israeli watchdog group chronicles the glorification of terrorists by the Palestinian Authority.

The report, From Terrorists to Role Models: The Palestinian Authority's Institutionalization of Incitement, follows the Palestinian Authority's (PA) move last month to rename a street in Ramallah after a Hamas terrorist, which was strongly condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the U.S. State Department.

According to the report, institutions named in honor of terrorists by the PA include schools and kindergartens, streets, buildings and neighborhoods, sports facilities, military units, summer camps, cultural events, popular publications and more.

The report from the group Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) offers this overview:

"A Palestinian child can walk to school along a street named after the terrorist Abu Jihad, who planned a bus hijacking that killed 37, spend the day learning in a school named after Hamas founder Ahmad Yassin, in the afternoon play football in a tournament named after suicide terrorist Abd Al-Baset Odeh who killed 31, and end his day at a youth center named after terrorist Abu Iyad, responsible for the killing of the 11 Olympic athletes in Munich."

During a news conference unveiling the report Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon thanked PMW for "expos[ing] Palestinian society and the Palestinian Authority as they present themselves, not to the world but to themselves."

Among the 46 different terrorists cited in the report, one is glorified by the PA more than any other. Dalal Mughrabi, whose 1978 attack on a bus filled with civilians killed more Israelis than any other Palestinian terrorist attack, has over a dozen of institutions in the West Bank named after her. In fact, USAID, through American Near East Refugee Aid, funded renovations for "the Dalal Mughrabi Girl's High School" in Hebron.

The PA does not distinguish between terrorists of different groups; in fact, the report cites approximately a dozen cases of institutions named after terrorists belonging to Hamas – the PA's long time bloody rival in Gaza.

PMW explains that "the PA practice of honoring terrorists is a very dangerous form of incitement, because it praises the killer and the act of killing after the actual murder has taken place…Honoring a suicide terrorist does not refer to a possibility, but glorifies an actual murder."

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