Members of the Israel Peace NGO Forum met with PLO Chairman Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) in Ramallah yesterday, providing the unrepentant Holocaust denier with a chorus of blame that Israel, and specifically Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, caused the failure of the “peace” process. But the group, led by Opposition Leader Yitzhak (Boogie) Herzog, somehow forgot to mention the Chairman’s responsibility for the anti-Israel incitement that defines Palestinian society at all levels.
This could be because members of the Forum regard Palestinian violence as the result of “settler provocations” (though, funny enough, never on the part of good, left-wing Israelis). hat settlers and the extreme right-wing members of the Israeli government will work overtime to provoke the Palestinians into violence. “It is clear to me that settlers and the extreme right-wing members of the Israeli government will work overtime to provoke the Palestinians into violence. It will be very difficult for the Palestinians to resist using violence in response to settler and army violence, to hate attacks, to the cutting down of olive trees, the demolishing of homes and removal of Palestinians from Area C,” Baskin wrote in The Jerusalem Post.
Apparently, to Baskin and his ilk, PLO glorification of suicide “martyrs” and ceremonies honoring Palestinian terrorists who had killed Israeli civilians has nothing to do with encouraging violence. The issue is certainly not serious enough to challenge “President Abbas” (why ruin a perfectly good lunch?), an architect of the PLO “armed struggle” doctrine that calls for targeting women and children to “liberate” Palestinian from the Jews.
But, alas, Abbas and his state-censored media has often expressed admiration for the killers of numerous Israeli civilians, most recently, on April 14. Then, an official PA news agency WAFA published Abbas’ praise that suicide bombers and planners of bombings and shooting attacks are “the beacon of our magnificent glory.”
In addition, Palestinian Media Watch said a Fatah official, Mahmoud al-Aloul, praised suicide “martyrs” to an audience at an organization rally in April, and described the killers as heroes that ”protected the honor of our children” and “died for the homeland and [for] honor.”
The “martyrs’ al-Aloul referred to included
- Marwan Zalum, commander of the Hebron branch of the Tanzim terror faction who was responsible for several terror attacks, including sending the terrorist who shot and killed infant Shalhevet Pass in her stroller on March 26, 2001. He also provided the explosive device used in a suicide attack at the entrance to Mahane Yehuda (central Jerusalem outdoor market) on April 12, 2002 (six killed, 80 wounded). Also responsible for planting a bomb that killed IDF soldier Shai Cohen on July 9, 2001.
- Sheikh Ahmed Yassin – Founder and former head of the terrorist organization Hamas. The Hamas movement is responsible for numerous terror attacks and the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians.
- Andalib Takatka – female suicide bomber who killed 6 and wounded more than 80 in her attack on Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda outdoor market on April 12, 2002.
- Ayyat Al-Akhras – the youngest female Palestinian suicide bomber (age 17). She killed 2 Israelis and injured 28 in a suicide bombing near a Jerusalem supermarket on March 29, 2002. Israel transferred the terrorist’s body to the PA on Feb. 2, 2014.
- Raed Al-Karmi – was a senior Tanzim (Fatah terror faction) operative and responsible for the murder of 9 Israelis in several attacks: Etgar Zeituni and Motti Dayan on Jan. 23, 2001; Zvi Shelef on May 31, 2001; Danny Yehuda on June 18, 2001; Elie Na’aman on July 4, 2001; Dov Roseman on Aug. 26, 2001; Hananya Ben Avraham on Oct. 5, 2001; soldier Yaniv Levy on Aug. 28, 2001 and Israeli army officer Erez Merhavi on Sept. 6, 2001. Al-Karmi was killed by the Israeli army on Jan. 14, 2002.
- Naif Abu Sharakh was the commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades (Fatah’s military wing) in Nablus. He was involved in many terrorist attacks against Israel, including a double suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on Jan. 5, 2003 in which 23 people were killed and dozens were injured. Sharakh was killed by the Israeli army on June 26, 2014.
- Atef Abayat – a Tanzim (Fatah terror faction) commander in Bethlehem who was accused of murdering Sarit Amrani in a shooting attack in the West Bank (Sept. 20, 2001). He was also accused of shooting at the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. Abayat was killed in a car explosion about a month after the murder of Sarit Amrani. PMW has been unable to verify the circumstances surrounding his death.