Palestinian Authority “Minister of Settlements” Ziad Abu Ein’s death during riots near Ramallah on Wednesday was a godsend for the PA “resistance.”
It re-triggered a firestorm of Arab riots all around Israel, just as the violence was starting to slow down. It also provided PA chairman Abu Mazen (as Mahmoud Abbas is known among Arabs) with the excuse he needed to disengage from Israel and order an end to PA security cooperation with the Jewish State. He has also managed to keep all that American-provided military hardware and weaponry in the bargain, while looking like the underdog, too — and this after U.S. Army professionals have done him the favor of also having trained his paramilitary force for years.
This leaves the 79 year old Arab leader sitting pretty for his closeup when PA TV has to focus on his track record for Judea and Samaria Arabs in the street.
But it also makes one wonder: was, perhaps, Abu Ein’s sudden death a true “martyrdom” for the so-called “cause” of Arab “resistance” ? A calculated risk intended to push Ziad Abu Ein’s medical vulnerability to the max and hope for a crisis to exploit before global media cameras?
Abu Ein, age 55, collapsed Wednesday and died while voluntarily participating in a riot that quickly morphed into clashes with Israeli soldiers at the village of Turmus Ayya, near the PA capital of Ramallah in Samaria.
The Arabs were rioting after a protest march that followed an alleged stoning of an Arab village by Jewish residents living in the Samaria community of Adei Ad – a reported retaliation for ongoing thefts perpetrated against their community, including a horse allegedly stolen on Tuesday.
The PA leadership claims Abu Ein suffered a heart attack after inhaling tear gas, having already been beaten by IDF soldiers with their rifles and butted by their helmets. Abu Mazen called his death an “intolerable barbaric act.” But…
Let’s go to the videotape. See if you can find bruises or blood. And what’s that stuff being sprayed on to the minister’s wrist by a fellow Arab?
Abu Ein can be seen sitting down, clearly short of breath and suffering chest pain but with no signs of physical violence on his person. He is known to have a medical history of hypertension – high blood pressure (HBP).
According to the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, HPB is a very serious condition that can lead to coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke, kidney failure and other health problems. Over time, it can damage the body in many ways, and the condition is dangerous because “it often has no symptoms.”
Blood pressure rises when one is excited, nervous or active, and the numbers rise with age. The risk grows as the numbers rise. Reducing risk for related health problems, according to NHLBI and NIH, involves “following a healthy lifestyle, keeping a healthy weight, having ongoing medical care and following your treatment plan.”
It is doubtful that participating in violent riots and clashes with soldiers would be included in that list.
But Abu Ein was a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council and a former Palestinian Authority ‘Minister’ for Prisoners (those sentenced in Israel.) Having himself been a convicted terrorist with blood on his hands – one who was freed after serving only three years of his prison term by Israel in a “good will gesture” to the PA – Abu Ein had the right experience for the job.
He personally planted the explosives that murdered two Jewish teenagers in Tiberias in 1979 — yet he was swapped together with Jibril Rajoub and more than a thousand others in exchange for three Israeli hostages.
The International Criminal Court’s acceptance Tuesday of the PA as an official observer in the Court brought the PA a step closer to full acceptance as a member of the ICC, which would give the entity jurisdiction as a sovereign nation to investigate and be investigated for commission of war crimes.