The Real Palestinian 'Heroes': Terrorists

by Bassam Tawil
September 30, 2021 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17764/palestinian-heroes-terrorists

Translations of this item:

As far as [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas and the PA leadership are concerned, any Palestinian who joins the jihad (holy war) against Israel and Jews and gets killed, wounded or imprisoned is a "hero" and a "freedom fighter." This is the same PA that the Biden administration is now working to strengthen.
This approach by the PA leadership has sent a message to generation after generation among the Palestinians that the murder or injuring of a Jew is a noble deed that earns the perpetrator boundless respect – even adoration.
This is the theater of the absurd, where a senior Palestinian official condemns Israel for making an effort to recapture convicted terrorists who murdered and injured several Jews and are serving lengthy sentences. Israel, according to this official, should stand aside while terrorists escape from prison and return to murdering Jews.
What Abbas, the PLO and Fatah have been saying – in Arabic – about the terrorists over the past few days reveals the Biden administration's talk about reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for what it really is: a fatal phantasm.
Under such circumstances, how could Abbas – or any Palestinian leader – ever return to the negotiating table with Israel, regardless of how many hundreds of millions of dollars the Biden administration decides to waste on the Palestinians' worthless words.

As far as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (pictured) and the PA leadership are concerned, any Palestinian who joins the jihad against Israel and Jews and gets killed, wounded or imprisoned is a "hero" and a "freedom fighter." This is the same PA that the Biden administration is now working to strengthen. (Photo by Alaa Badarneh/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

While many international media outlets focused their attention on the escape of six Palestinian inmates from an Israeli prison on September 6, as well as the ensuing dramatic manhunt launched by thousands of Israeli police officers and soldiers, only a few – if any – reported on the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership's ongoing glorification of terrorists.

The PA lionization of Palestinian terrorists, including those who have been caught by the Israeli security forces, tried and are currently serving prison sentences, is not new. In fact, this is a practice that dates back to the first years of the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964.

Since then, the PLO has not only been heaping praise on Palestinian terrorists who murder or wound Jews, but has paid monthly stipends to them and their families.

Earlier this year, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) revealed that the PA paid more than NIS 512 million ($175 million) in salaries to terrorist prisoners in 2020. PMW assessed that the amount paid to terrorist prisoners accounts for nearly 3.25% of the PA's annual budget.

According to PMW, the PA attempted to hide its payments to terrorist prisoners by transferring more than a billion shekels to the PLO, of which 512 million shekels was used to pay the terrorists and their families.

This policy of providing financial aid to terrorists and their families is not a policy that the PA and its leaders ever tried to hide. Quite to the contrary; PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh and many senior Palestinian officials continue to boast of their role in rewarding the terrorists and their families.

In 2018, a defiant Abbas said in Ramallah during a ceremony to honor Palestinian prisoners:

"We will neither reduce nor prevent [payment] of allowances to the families of martyrs, prisoners, and released prisoners, as some seek, and if we had only a single penny left, we would pay it to families of the martyrs and prisoners. From our standpoint, the martyrs and prisoners are stars in the firmament of the Palestinian people's struggle, and take priority in every matter. In 1965, a few days after the outbreak of the Palestinian revolution, the first mission undertaken by the martyr late president Yasser Arafat was to establish an institution to care for the families of the martyrs and the mujahideen of Palestine – for they are the pioneers and must be cared for, and we will care for them."

The recent escape ad recapture of the six prisoners served as a reminder of the PA's continued support for, and admiration of, terrorists who carry out attacks against Jews.

As far as Abbas and the PA leadership are concerned, any Palestinian who joins the jihad (holy war) against Israel and Jews and gets killed, wounded or imprisoned is a "hero" and a "freedom fighter." This is the same PA that the Biden administration is now working to strengthen.

This approach by the PA leadership has sent a message to generation after generation among the Palestinians that the murder or wounding of a Jew is a noble deed that earns the perpetrator boundless respect – even adoration.

Although five of the terrorists who escaped belong to the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) – a group that seeks the elimination of Israel and opposes the PA leadership's "moderate" policy towards Israel -- Abbas and his senior officials in the West Bank continue to call them "heroes" and "brave prisoners."

Although four of the PIJ terrorists were convicted of murdering and wounding several Jews, Abbas and his representatives continue to refer to them as "political prisoners" and "freedom fighters" who are being held in prison for nothing other than "opposing Israeli occupation."

Abbas has made it a habit to receive and honor convicted and suspected terrorists after their release from Israeli prisons.

Just two months ago, Abbas defied COVID-19 rules and was prepared to risk his health by inviting an ex-prisoner, Alghadanfar Abu Atwan, to his office in Ramallah.

Abu Atwan was invited to Abbas's office shortly after he was released from Israeli detention on suspicion of involvement in anti-Israel terrorist activities, the nature of which have not been revealed by the Israeli security services.

During the meeting, Abbas was quoted as saying that the released prisoner "represents a model for the Palestinian youth that we are proud of."

Such meetings between Abbas and Palestinian prisoners are common and aimed at sending a message to the Palestinian public about the great esteem Palestinians hold towards the terrorists and their families. Abbas is actually telling the Palestinians: If you go to prison for murdering or wounding a Jew, you will earn the utmost respect and even be honored by the president himself.

While the manhunt for the six fugitives was underway, Abbas sent his spokesperson, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, to relay the following message to the Palestinians, Israelis and the rest of the world: "Our brave prisoners in the Israeli prisons are the heroes of the Palestinian people, and there will be no peace or stability without the release of all our prisoners."

Mahmoud al-Aloul, the deputy chairman of the ruling Fatah faction (headed by Mahmoud Abbas), even warned Israel against attempting to recapture the convicted terrorists, whom he hailed as "heroes." According to al-Aloul, the re-arrest of the terrorists who escaped from Israel's Gilboa Prison would be tantamount to a "crime" and "violation" of their rights.

This is the theater of the absurd, where a senior Palestinian official condemns Israel for making an effort to recapture convicted terrorists who murdered and injured several Jews and are serving lengthy sentences. Israel, according to this official, should stand aside while terrorists escape from prison and return to murdering Jews.

The PLO, which is also headed by Abbas, said as the manhunt was underway that the terrorist prisoners are "the advanced vanguard and the best of the Palestinian youth because they sacrificed their lives for the sake of their homeland and their people."

It is this kind of rhetoric that prompts Palestinians to join the jihad against Israel and set out on missions to attack Jews. It is also this type of rhetoric that sent thousands of Palestinians to the streets to express solidarity with the fugitives and all terrorists held in Israeli prisons.

The statements and actions of Abbas and other Palestinian leaders in the aftermath of the escape of the six terrorists demonstrate clearly how the Palestinians have transformed murderers and thugs into societal role models.

What Abbas, the PLO and Fatah have been saying – in Arabic – about the terrorists over the past few days reveals the Biden administration's talk about reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for what it really is: a fatal phantasm.

To Palestinians, the real "heroes" are those who are in Israeli prison for carrying out terrorist attacks against Jews.

By praising the terrorists and depicting them as "heroes" and "martyrs," the Palestinian leadership is underwriting those who engage in violence, seek the elimination of Israel and reject any peace process in the Middle East. Under such circumstances, how could Abbas – or any Palestinian leader – ever return to the negotiating table with Israel, regardless of how many hundreds of millions of dollars the Biden administration decides to waste on the Palestinians' worthless words.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.

© 2024 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Related Topics: Israel, Palestinian Authority

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Comment on this item

21 Reader Comments

Z • Sep 30, 2021 at 12:05

Einstein made the famous saying "repeating the same actions and expecting different results, is the definition of insanity." Well, many Israeli governments have been following the same policy toward the Pals for decades, and getting the same results.

Israel should simply kill every terrorist who tries to kill Israelis, let alone succeeds. Even better, but I dream, the Israeli government should, when the pal terrorists are still alive, stick a piece of bacon in their mouths, and then kill them. Per their beliefs, they would not go to heaven nor paradise. That would likely cease or at least lower the incidence of pals literally and figuratively, getting away with murder.

And maybe, while I continue to dream, cut off all foreign aid to Abbas and the pals unless and until they become ready to negotiate in good faith.

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Eliot Schickler • Sep 30, 2021 at 11:27

Abbas is a dirty-fighting punk and the only language he and his minions would understand is being forced into an unconditional surrender, similar to what Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman forced upon the Confederate States of America! Israel should be allowed to force unconditional surrender for not only will it save many Israeli lives, but will also save, ironically, Palestinian lives in the process!

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Selma Soss • Sep 30, 2021 at 11:21

One has to remember that the Palestinians, those who play heroes, and keep the pot stirring against Israel, may be encouraged by Abbas who is encouraged most likely by Erdogan and/or Iran who would like nothing better than to impose their ideology on democratic countries. One can never trust this situation, no democratic countries, certainly not our own... under Biden.
Israel must stay strong!

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tiki • Sep 30, 2021 at 10:29

Don't blame the so called palestinians. They have been so brainwashed for generations to know no other way. Blame the West!

EU/US/UN & friends with their broken moral compass.

As long as so called palestinians are being supported by these hypocrites (financially & morally), nothing will change.

The biggest victims of these policies are of course the so called palestinians themselves!

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Quaheri • Sep 30, 2021 at 10:01

The extraordinary thing is that the EU is paying for all of this !

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Peter Rotberg • Sep 30, 2021 at 09:07

Dear Bassam
And for those "heroes'" sake Biden Administration renewed generous financial aid partly for paying terrorists' families salaries , opened US Consulate in East Jerusalem and returned unconditionally to the 2 centuries' bluff - 2 "States Solution".
INCONCEIVABLE
Peter Rotberg
The Realist.

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cammo99 • Sep 30, 2021 at 09:06

For the uninformed from Hussein's own transcripts of classified meetings, discovered after 2004, he hoped to push forward to the Golan Heights, and held that Assad was a traitor to the cause of the Arabs, of whom he and the Iraqis were the rightful leaders. The bombing of his nuclear facility in 1981 may have had something to do with it. A secondary reason Hussein had for attacking Iran without nukes, thanks Israel, is to hone his Army giving it the experience in combat needed to push to the Golan; once there he did not even care if his Army was wiped out by an Israeli nuke. He would have considered it a victory for the Arab people to challenge the Israelis. In his own words.
More incredible, Saddam Hussein and his generals also believed they won the first Gulf War , people in the West would find this too incredible to believe but socialists don't seem so skeptical of Hussein, in fact they would take that murdering torturer and warmonger in a heartbeat over both Presidents Bush and did.
That is the socialists power running the strings to Biden. Americans find too incredulous that Biden truly believes his failures are successes. His goals are not commensurate with capitalism, a strong economy destroyed is a success, the pell mell exit from Afghanistan is a victory because he got our troops out. He could not spare 2,500 troops to save lives in Afghanistan but the DNC wants 5,000 permanently stationed around their temple Mount on the Hill. The environment? The clock set for 12 years until the end of mankind, again, and with the same failed proofs. Overpopulation in the West, millions more migrants and wildfires are a more pressing matter and totally ignored it doesn't fit the narrative.

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Harvey Lithwick • Sep 30, 2021 at 08:53

Biden has reinstated the entire team of half wits who shaped US mid-East policy under Obama. So we should not expect their resumed courting of the butchers of Iran and the primitive Taliban of Afghanistan to behave any more rationally towards Israel. For a government which prides itself on fostering democracy, what could be more hypocritical than supporting the most anti-democratic, uncivilized regimes in the world.

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judith grayson • Sep 30, 2021 at 06:42

The billions of dollars in foreign aid goes to pay terrorists to murder Jews. the money goes into the pockets of Abbas and the PLO leadership. their gilded mansions and fat Swiss bank accounts represent all the funds heaped upon these killers and their patently fake claims to Israel's land. the west's financial support of Iran and fake deals means Iran will continue building nuclear weapons to hold hostage the middle east. it enables their Iranian proxies, the terrorist gangs of Hamas and hezbollah, strengthening the armies of murderous Islamist cult worshipers whose only goal is the destruction of the Jewish nation state. President Donald Trump removed the funding. Mr. Biden has replaced the funds flowing toward the suicidal aggression. Biden's footnote to the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists in Afghanistan.

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Ted • Sep 30, 2021 at 06:37

This dead horse of a subject has been beaten to mush, and still feckless, unprincipled world leaders court and coddle these murderers with glowing praise and millions of dollars!

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Chris Coles FRSA • Sep 30, 2021 at 06:33

Like it or not, here in the UK we also had to learn that the road to peace, in our case in Northern Ireland; has to be through face to face communication. You have to sit down and talk to each other, and to achieve that you have to stop calling each other names. Throwing bricks through each other's windows does nothing but continue to show all of us that you all need to change direction. No, not easy, necessary. You want peace, then you have to accept the other point of view. Wars always end when each side makes the effort to sit down and talk, rather than continue to fight.

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David

Chris Coles FRSA • Sep 30, 2021 at 11:50

Do you think this approach would have worked with Hitler? It won't work with all the different Muslim factions, who will only stop fighting when everyone submits to Islam.

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Chris Coles FRSA • Sep 30, 2021 at 13:07

In order to sit down and talk, everyone involved has to tire of fighting first. That was certainly the case in Ulster. Unfortunately, Abbas' rhetoric shows that the PA are not there at this time.

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Harvey L

Chris Coles FRSA • Sep 30, 2021 at 15:37

Very true Chris the problem is on numerous occasions Israel has offered to sit down with these so called Palestinians time and time again the response has been no Israel full stop. It's impossible to negotiate with people who see you as an invader and want you banished from land that you have been connected to for 3500 years long before Islam was ever even a faith.

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Natalie

Chris Coles FRSA • Sep 30, 2021 at 15:40

Yes, you have to stop throwing bricks through windows. Does that mean that Hamas (which is gaining popularity in the west bank of the Jordan River region) should perhaps stop launching rockets at Israeli civilians? Or maybe stop inciting violence with false claims of Jewish attacks on the Al Aqsa mosque? And maybe stop training their children to be terrorists and start educating them with facts, not lies about the Jewish people? It takes two to talk and takes grappling with truth, not propaganda. It would be a whole lot easier to talk if both sides genuinely wanted peace, and acted accordingly.

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Leon Poddebsky

Chris Coles FRSA • Sep 30, 2021 at 18:38

The crux of the Palestinian war against the Jews: immutable Palestinian politico-religious dogma is that Jews have no right to national self-determination anywhere because the Deity supposedly consigned them to the perpetual status of dhimmi, i.e., a collective that must forever remain subservient to others.
Another facet of Palestinian thought is that so long as the enemy is perceived to be strong, he should not be attacked, but the moment that he falters, he must be attacked mercilessly. That rule was established by supposedly Divine sanction, and historically has been honoured over the centuries by the Believers.

In these circumstances platitudinous appeals for "sitting down and talking" might bear fruit among adherents to "Western values," but are risibly futile when addressed to adherents of an entirely different world view.

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David

David • Oct 3, 2021 at 02:11

Iran and Iraq, both Muslim-majority nations, were at war decades ago and millions of lives were lost.

Today there is high tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
There are many more historical examples of war between Muslim-majority nations. Do not forget about bloodshed triggered by the centuries old real religious differences between Sunni, Shi'ite, Alawite branches of Islam.

It is a naive false hope and simply wrong to think that if the entire planet consisted of only Muslim-majority nations, there would be no further wars.

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Agnes

Leon Poddebsky • Oct 4, 2021 at 04:22

So true.

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Ernst • Sep 30, 2021 at 06:26

The Biden cabal running the US administrative government is throwing money around everywhere it can. The plan is to bankrupt the country, crash the society, and proceed to have the government (Democrats) take total control. Only honorable allies of the traditional US need worry; they will be denied and even opposed.

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David Leffingwell • Sep 30, 2021 at 06:23

It is insane - and extraordinarily stupid - to pretend that Israel should engage in some chimerical "peace process" with the Palestinians. That idea implies that both sides are willing to work in good faith toward an outcome that is at mutually acceptable to both, if not perfect for either. That has never been the case here. The Palestinians demand nothing less than the destruction of Israel, so there is no reason for Israel to waste time negotiating.

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Hamish MacDonald • Sep 30, 2021 at 05:24

To the Palestinian, the U.S is the enemy. To the Israeli, the Palestinian is an enemy. To the world, terrorism is a problem; but not to the Palestinian; the terrorist fits nicely into an Islamic definition of a hero - even if the hero commits suicide like the Kamikaze of Japan, and destroys the enemy. Good article. Exposes the mischief.

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