February 7, 2002
The Arab terrorist who murdered a Jewish mother, her 11-year-old daughter
and a soldier last night in the agricultural community of Hamra (see next story)
was granted the equivalent of Palestinian “sainthood” by the PLO media. So
reports Michael Widlanski of www.themedialine.org .
Yasser Arafat’s Voice of Palestine radio opened its morning newscast by
labeling last night’s attack “istish-haad” — an act of “heroic martyrdom.” News
anchorman Nizar Al-Ghul said, “The man carrying out the operation became a
heroic martyr after killing two settlers and a soldier and wounding at least
four.”
The Voice of Palestine news editors failed to mention that the murdered “settlers”
were a 45-year-old mother and her 11-year-old daughter.
During this morning’s news magazine, the Voice of Palestine played an operatic
song that repeatedly calls for “martyrs” and for acts of “heroic martyrdom”
inside Jerusalem. The name of the song is “Al Quds Madinat Al-Salaam”
.
The discrepancy between Arafat’s conciliatory message to the world in English
and his support of terrorism among Palestinians was further evident in the
praise afforded Wafa Idris. Idris, a 27-year-old Arab woman, entered Jerusalem
last week in an ambulance belonging to the Palestinian Red Crescent and later
set off a huge bomb on Jerusalem’s busiest street, killing one man and
wounding 150.
The newspapers and broadcast outlets of the Palestinian Authority
glorified the woman, running her picture on the front page continuously and
proclaiming her a martyr.
Three days before the publication of Arafat’s New York Times op-ed [“The
Palestinian Vision of Peace, Feb. 3, 2002], in which he condemned “the attacks
carried out by terrorist groups against Israeli civilians,” Arafat’s Fatah
organization led a demonstration for young Palestinian girls to exalt the woman
suicide bomber. In the photo which documents this rally , elementary school girls are seen carrying
posters of the suicide bomber.
The text on the posters reads: “The Fatah Movement … proudly
eulogizes their heroine martyr, from the Alamari refugee camp, the martyr Wafa
Idris.” The photo, from Al Ayyam, February 1, 2002, was provided courtesy of
Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch.
None of the Palestinian media outlets mentioned that Idris was apparently in a
state of extreme depression after being divorced by her husband when she
miscarried her baby in the seventh month of pregnancy. The husband refused
to take his wife back, Israeli sources said, after it became clear that she would
have difficulty conceiving children.
In an interview with MSNBC television, Arafat refused to condemn the woman’s
act. “Don’t we have the right to resist occupation?”
For the last week there has been no mention whatsoever in the PLO media in
Arabic of Arafat’s op-ed piece in The New York Times where he said he
opposed terrorism.
Arafat speaking to an enthusiastic crowd yesterday chanted, “There are millions
of martyrs marching on Jerusalem!”
Arafat used the word for martyrs in reference to suicide bombers and
other terrorists killed while attacking Israelis. Arafat again repeatedly called for
“Jihad” – Islamic holy war and declared that he himself hopes to become a “martyr.”
