Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Culture of death, stuck in the Dark Ages

This is a review of Palestinian reaction to the Yeshiva massacre in Jerusalem, from both "moderate" and "extremist" Palestinians (see if you can tell the difference). The question arises: should the West be funding this culture of death???

...first from PMW, by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, Mar 9 2008:

Mahmoud Abbas's official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper has honored the killer of the eight high school students gunned down this week with the status of Shahid - Holy Islamic Martyr. In so doing, the PA is sending its people a straightforward message of support for the terror murders and the murderer. According to the PA interpretation of Islam, there is no higher status that a human being can achieve today than that of Shahid.

The official PA daily Al Hayat Al Jadida prominently placed a picture of the killer on the front page, with the caption, "The Shahid Alaa Abu D'heim." In a Page One article on the terror killings, his act is again defined as a "Shahada achieving" action....

....This honoring of terror and terrorists by the PA [remember - they're the "moderate partners for peace"] has significant financial ramifications, particularly at this time. Last week the US Administration sent a request to Congress to allocate $150 million to the Palestinian Authority.

...Congress made it illegal for the US to give money to entities that "advocate" terror, as follows:

"[The US] shall terminate assistance to any individual, entity... which she has determined to be involved in or advocating terrorist activity." Congress further legislated that "none of the [US] ... assistance under the West Bank and Gaza Program may be made available for the purpose of recognizing or otherwise honoring individuals who commit, or have committed acts of terrorism." -2008 Foreign Operations Bill Sec. 657.B - C.1

Since a society's honoring of terrorists is one of the greatest terror promotions, and as the budget for the PA newspaper comes from the PA's general budget, the incessant honoring of this and all recent terrorists by Abbas's PA as Holy Islamic Shahids should render the Palestinian Authority ineligible to receive any American money under the terms of US law....

...then from The Washington Times, by Joel Mowbray, March 7, 2008:

A showdown could be looming between Congress and the Bush administration over a $150 million request for emergency aid for the Palestinian Authority government led by President Mahmoud Abbas.

At issue is whether or not Mr. Abbas has either the capacity or desire to bring Palestinians closer to a peace deal with Israel, and it was his own words that triggered congressional wrath.

In an interview with Jordanian newspaper Al-Dastur last week, Mr. Abbas spoke with pride of violence he had waged in his past, suggested that terrorism could start anew in the future, and essentially backed away from repeated statements that he “recognizes” Israel's right to exist. A top congressional appropriator, Foreign Operations Chairman Nita Lowey, said flatly, “President Abbas' recent statements cast doubt on his willingness to take the steps necessary for peace with Israel.”...

...Appearing much less careful than when speaking in English, Mr. Abbas last week told the Arabic-language Al-Dastur, “I was honored to be the one to shoot the first bullet in 1965,” the year his organization, Fatah, initiated terrorism against Israel. (Transcript provided by PMW.)

The renowned “moderate” Palestinian leader then explained his pride in “having taught resistance to many in this area and around the world ... including Hezbollah, who were trained in [PLO] camps.”...

....Most concerning to Congress, however, was ...[on] the question of whether or not Hamas must “recognize” Israel, Mr. Abbas explained, “I don't demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel. I only demanded of the [Palestinian] national unity government that would work opposite Israel in recognition of it.”...

...and from THE JERUSALEM POST, Mar. 9, 2008, by Khaled Abu Toameh:

Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, on Sunday welcomed the killing of the eight yeshiva students in Jerusalem and lashed out at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for condemning the shooting attack....

...Expressing its full support for the attack, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades described it as an "heroic" operation ...[and] called for carrying out more attacks against Israel.

The group expressed "astonishment" over a statement that was issued by Abbas condemning the Jerusalem attack. It urged him to release all the Aksa Martyrs Brigades gunmen who were being held in PA security installations in the West Bank and to hand them back their weapons so they could resume their attacks on Israel.

...finally from The Daily News (US), by Hashisho/Reuters, Sunday, March 9th 2008, 4:00 AM:

Palestinian celebration of murder dooms hope for peace

...The pictures from Jerusalem were horrifying: Dead and injured students being wheeled out of a Jewish religious school after an Arab gunman went on a rampage.

Other images were disturbing in a different way: These were the pictures of Palestinians celebrating the massacre. They shouted jubilantly from cars and danced in the streets of Gaza. Men fired bursts of automatic weapons skyward. Some kneeled on the ground to pray. In Lebanon, crowds of Palestinians also rejoiced, with a Reuters photo showing a man holding a startled looking child in one hand and a pistol in the other.

...the sickening contrast of Thursday's massacre and celebration.....too many Palestinians embrace a culture of death. It is a culture stuck in the Dark Ages of ancient hatreds and unspeakable violence.

The evidence lies in missing pictures. Why no photos of Palestinians marching to condemn the massacre? Where are the Palestinian young people sympathizing with dead and maimed students their own age? Where are the Palestinian parents grieving for the Israeli parents who lost their children?

... There were no pictures of sad Palestinians because there were no marches or wide expressions of sympathy. Apart from the obligatory disapproval mumbled by the government, there was no condemnation. More typical was a message from Hamas, the terror group: "We bless the operation. It will not be the last."

Every society has its madmen, its gangsters and killers. But in functioning societies, they are shunned and punished as an example of how not to behave. Not so in Palestinian society or in too much of the Muslim world. Celebrations of death, as they did Thursday, soon become odes to martyrs. In less than a day, pictures of the lone gunman in the massacre appeared on posters glorifying his death. Behind his clean-shaven, ordinary face were a mosque and messages of heroic defiance.

... how is Israel supposed to make peace with them? This is, after all, a society that perverts Mickey Mouse into a hate-spewing children's character. It turned a cuddly rabbit character into a monster who says he will "eat the Jews.".... Other shows glorify songs and dance about jihad and martyrdom. Children are taught that it is their religious duty to kill themselves and as many Jews and other "infidels" as possible.

You can't really make peace with that culture. .... For try as you can, you can never understand a culture that celebrates death.

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