Politic?

Patterning Palestinian Youth

A Palestinian demonstrator has a knife in his belt and rocks in his hand during clashes with Israeli troops, near Ramallah, West Bank, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2015. AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed

"We remember the martyrs, the wounded and the prisoners and their record… We salute our brave prisoners and respect them. We will not forget our fighting comrades…or [our] glorious woman prisoners."
"The issue of the prisoners will continue to be a top priority for the [Palestinian] leadership, [which will act] to free all the prisoners and detainees."
"[The Palestinian Authority will] make every effort to end the suffering of our heroic brothers and release them from the occupation’s prisons so they can take part in building the homeland for which they sacrificed."
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

According to MEMRI, the Palestinian Authority president met a week ago with the fourteen-year-old Osama Zaidat who lunged with a knife to stab Israelis in Kiryat Arba last September and was shot for his efforts; recently released from detention. Imad Asaf, a member of the Fatah military wing, the Al-Aqsa Brigades recently released from an Israeli prison where he served time for taking part in the 2000 Second Intifada was another terrorist honoured by Mahmoud Abbas.

It is well enough known on the public record that streets, buildings and other public areas are named in honour of Palestinian 'martyrs'.

The Palestine Liberation Organization Supreme Council for Youth and Sports named a camp in honour of the Brothers of Dalal. They, the children of Palestinians, are to think of themselves as privileged to be considered brothers in celebration of Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian nurse, once a lieutenant in the Fatah faction of the PLO. Born in 1959, she died in 1978, the anniversary date precisely March 11. That was when she directed a remarkable event, called the Coastal Road Massacre.

Fatah poster commemorating Dalal Al-Mughrabi

Leading a team of eleven Palestinians on the coastal plain near Tel Aviv with the intention of a demonstration to shut down peace talks taking place between Israel and Egypt, they hoped to be able at the same time to attack the ministry of defence; failing that, to "reach the Knesset and demand the release of Palestinian prisoners".

As they moved along they encountered an American photographer, Gail Rubin, taking pictures of the natural surroundings on the beach. They asked for directions and when she complied Mughrabi killed her.

Back on the coastal road, they hailed a taxi, hijacked it, and killed its occupants, then seized two buses, placing all of the passengers, totalling 71 people, in one of the buses. En route, Israeli Forces stopped the bus and as a firefight ensued, the bus exploded. According to the Israelis Mughrabi blew the bus up with a grenade. According to the Palestinians the explosion was a result of fire from an Israeli helicopter gunship.

Mughrabi and eight others among the terrorists died in the resulting gunfight. So too did 38 Israelis, thirteen children among them, while 72 were wounded. It was a massacre, a profound tragedy for Israel, a celebratory event for Palestinians.

Today she is a heroine, a Palestinian martyr, her name memorialized in a public square, a computer centre, a soccer tournament, and now the summer camp for Palestinian children.

Al Bireh, a West Bank city, placed her name on a public square in 2011, holding a ceremony, installing a plaque showing the woman with a rifle cradled in her arms, against a map of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

These are the sympathetic figures of Palestinian pride in "resistance" against the "occupation", in place to defend Israel against Palestinian terrorists. And these are the oppressed Palestinians that find so much sympathetic support in the West, enthusiastic supporters of the BDS movement to punish the oppressors of the "occupation".