Official Palestinian Authority media honored Fadi al-Qanbar, the killer responsible for the murder of four IDF soldiers on Sunday and who wounded 17 others — with the supreme Islamic honor of calling him a “shahid” – a “martyr who died for Allah.”
PA TV went out of its way to focus on the religious value of the terror attack by using the term “Shahid” 7 times, mostly as a replacement for the terrorist’s name, according to media watchdog Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which translated Arabic-language reports on the attack and its aftermath in Palestinian Authority media.
By calling the terrorist murderer a Shahid, the PA is telling its people that murdering the Israeli youths was sanctioned by Islam and seen as positive Islamic behavior.
According to the PMW, the newly-bereaved widow of an-Qanbar — who expressed his passionate support for the Islamic State terrorist organization online — will receive a lifetime monthly stipend of NIS 2900 ($760).
The terrorist’s widow will technically receive her monthly payment from the Palestine Liberation Organization, which serves as the conduit for the funds on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
According to PA law, the family of a “Shahid” receives a base payment of NIS 1400 per month. A wife of the Shahid receives an additional NIS 400, plus NIS 200 for each child, and for being a resident of Jerusalem an additional NIS 300 as well, PMW revealed in its translation of PA media reports.
As a result, in total the terrorist’s widow will receive NIS 2,900 ($760) per month for the rest of her life. Moreover, within the next few months, she will also receive a one-time grant of NIS 6,000 ($1,580).
In reports translated by PMW, the PFLP terrorist organization “blessed” and “congratulated” the PA over the “Jerusalem operation.”
“DFLP” terrorist politburo member Talal Abu Tharaifa was quoted by the PA-based Ma’an news agency as saying the truck ramming attack was “part of the Palestinian resistance … a legal right anchored in international law and all the resolutions of the international bodies.”
The latter comment in particular is noteworthy given the most recent resolution passed unanimously by the United Nations Security Council, 2334(2016), with the encouragement and assistance of the United States, which for the first time since the administration of former President Jimmy Carter, deliberately abstained in order to allow the resolution to pass, with its condemnation of Israel, and implied demand for a world boycott.
The DFLP urged Arab readers to “turn this intifada of the young people into a comprehensive popular intifada that will include all sectors of society,” according to the PMW.
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas – Israel’s ostensible “peace partner” – refrained from condemning the terrorist attack, in contrast to his fervent and vocal condemnations of the other recent car ramming terror attacks in Berlin and Nice.
This sent a strong message to citizens of the Palestinian Authority at home and also abroad.
“By actively and vociferously condemning terror in all other parts of the world and refusing to condemn Palestinian terror against Israelis, Abbas is notifying his people that he doesn’t condemn or consider killing Israelis as terror,” the PMW points out.
At least one of the soldiers wounded in the attack is still fighting for her life. The group was on an education study tour in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon HaNatziv, East Talpiot, when al-Qanbar repeatedly rammed his truck into the soldiers after they left their bus.