Are terrorists good at football?
Are terrorists good at football?
It doesn't matter to the PA -
they are still the role models
for Palestinian teens playing football!
It doesn't matter to the PA -
they are still the role models
for Palestinian teens playing football!
- Teams named after founders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Black September, PFLP, and PLO terror organizations, in Fatah football tourney for high school boys
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Sports is considered a place where politics and conflict are put aside - but not in the Palestinian Authority. A football tournament for high school boys in Hebron, arranged by the local Fatah branch, named all 11 teams after terrorists - including terror leaders responsible for most of the deaths from terror Israel has suffered since its founding. Six were top Palestinian terror leaders and founders of terror organizations, while the other five were terrorists or members of terror organizations. The PA Ministry of Education endorsed the event's role modeling of terrorists with a representative who "honored the winning players and teams."
Here is the list of the teams in the President Martyr Yasser Arafat Football Championship:The Martyr Yasser Arafat team (founder of the PLO and Fatah terror organizations in the 1960s, and former chairman of the PA),
The Martyr Ahmed Yassin team (founder of the Hamas terror organization),
The Martyr Fathi Shaqaqi team (founder of the Islamic Jihad terror organization),
TheMartyr Salah Khalafteam (head of the Black September terror organization),
The Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa team (head of the PFLP terror organization),
The Martyr Khalil Al-Wazir 'Abu Jihad' team (terror leader responsible for murder of 125 Israelis),
The MartyrMarwan Zalumteam (terrorist responsible for several murders),
The Martyr Abu Yusuf Al-Najjarteam (commander of operations for Black September),
The Martyr Kamal Adwanteam (senior member of Black September),
The Martyr Saad Sayel team (leader inFatah terror organization),
The Martyr Majed Abu Sharar team (senior member ofFatah terror organization)
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 19, 2018]
During the PA's terror campaign - the second Intifada, 2000-2005 - the PA started naming sporting events after terrorists. For example, the Ministry of Education sponsored the Martyr Abd Al-Basset Odeh Championship - named after the suicide bomber who carried out the Passover Seder suicide bombing in Netanya on March 27, 2002, in which 30 Israelis were murdered and 140 injured.
However, as Palestinian Media Watch has exposed, after the PA's terror campaign ended in 2005, the PA did not stop using terrorists as role models, but continued its policy of glorifying terrorist murderers by naming sporting events after them. This is one of many ways in which the PA poisons the minds of Palestinian children.
Here are some more recent examples:
Fatah named a futsal tournament after arch-terrorist Abu Jihad, who the PA has credited with planning the murder of 125 Israelis. The tournament also featured numerous other teams named after terrorist murderers who in total murdered over 100 people.
- Within two week of his being caught and killed, three tournaments in futsal, table tennis, and handball were already named after terrorist Ahmed Nasr Jarrar, who murdered an Israeli father of 6, in January 2018.
- PA schools participated in a football tournament named after Ahmad Manasrah, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who stabbed and nearly killed a 13-year-old Israeli boy.
- Murderer Muhannad Halabi, who stabbed two Israelis to death,
had a football tournament named after him.
- A PA school hosted a basketball game named after Dalal Mughrabi, who led a group of terrorists, hijacked a bus filled with Israeli civilians in 1978, and murdered 37 of them, including 12 children.
The following is the report in the official PA daily on the Fatah championship honoring terrorists:
"Under the auspices of the Fatah Movement's Hebron branch, the Shabab Taffuh Sports Club organized the [former PLO Chairman and PA] President Martyr Yasser Arafat Football Championship for the 14th anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death. [The championship was held] at the fields of the Taffuh High School for Boys, with the participation of 11 teams of children and youth.
The teams were named after great leaders of the Palestinian people: The Martyr Yasser Arafat team (i.e., founder of the PLO, Fatah and former chairman of the PA), the Martyr Ahmed Yassin team (i.e., founder of the Hamas terror organization), the Martyr Fathi Shaqaqi team (i.e., founder of the Islamic Jihad terror organization), the MartyrMarwan Zalumteam (i.e., terrorist responsible for several murders), theMartyr Salah Khalafteam (i.e., head of the Black September terror organization), the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa team (i.e., secretary-general of the PFLP terror organization), the Martyr Khalil Al-Wazir 'Abu Jihad' team (i.e., terrorist responsible for murder of 125 Israelis), the Martyr Abu Yusuf Al-Najjarteam (i.e., commander of operations for Black September), the Martyr Kamal Adwanteam (i.e., Fatah terror leader), the Martyr Saad Sayel team (i.e., Fatah terror leader), and the Martyr Majed Abu Sharar team (i.e., senior Fatah leader) ...
Fatah's Hebron Branch Secretary Imad Kherwat Nasser Al-Din and Head of the [Hebron] Education Directorate (i.e., under the PA Ministry of Education) Atef Al-Jamal... honored the winning players and teams."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 19, 2018]
Yasser Arafat - Founder of the PLO and Fatah, former chairman of the PA. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s Arafat was behind numerous terror attacks against Israelis. Although he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 together with then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres "for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East" after signing the Oslo Accords peace agreement, Arafat launched a 5-year terror campaign - the second Intifada (2000-2005) - in which more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered. Arafat died of an illness in 2004.Ahmed Yassin - Founder and former head of the terrorist organization Hamas. The Hamas movement is responsible for numerous terror attacks and the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians.
Fathi Shaqaqi - Founder of the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad, which has carried out more than 1,000 terror attacks, murdering and wounding hundreds of Israeli civilians. Shaqaqi was killed in 1995 in an operation attributed to Israel but for which Israel never took responsibility.
Marwan Zalum - Palestinian terrorist and commander of the Hebron branch of the Tanzim (Fatah terror faction). He was responsible for several terror attacks in the Hebron region, including sending the terrorist who in a shooting attack murdered the infant Shalhevet Pass in her stroller on March 26, 2001. He organized the planting of a bomb in southern Hebron, which murdered Israeli soldier Shai Cohen on July 9, 2001, and initiated a shooting attack at the entrance to Kiryat Arba on July 12, 2001, in which 1 person was murdered. Zalum also provided the explosive device used in a suicide attack at the entrance to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open market on April 12, 2002, in which 6 Israelis were murdered and 80 wounded. Zalum was killed by the Israeli army on April 22, 2002.
Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad) - Yasser Arafat's deputy, one of the founders of Fatah, and head of the terror organization Black September, a secret branch of Fatah. Attacks he planned include the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics (Sept. 5, 1972) and the murder of two American diplomats in Sudan (March 1, 1973). It is commonly assumed that his assassin, a former Fatah bodyguard, was sent by the Abu Nidal Organization, a rival Palestinian faction.
Abu Ali Mustafa - Secretary-General of the terror organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP, which rejected the Oslo Accords (1993), has planned and carried out numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians since its founding in 1967 and throughout the Palestinian terror campaign between 2000-2005 (the Intifada).
Abu Jihad (Khalil Al-Wazir) - was a founder of Fatah and deputy to Yasser Arafat. He headed the PLO terror organization's military wing and also planned many deadly Fatah terror attacks in the 1960's - 1980's. These attacks, in which a total of 125 Israelis were murdered, included the most lethal in Israeli history - the hijacking of a bus and murder of 37 civilians, 12 of them children.
Abu Yusuf Al-Najjar - was Arafat's deputy and among the founders of Fatah. He was the Commander of Al-Asifa, Fatah's military unit, and member of Fatah's Central Committee and PLO's Executive Committee. He also was the Commander of Operations of the terror organization Black September, a secret branch of Fatah, and involved in the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics (Sept. 5, 1972). He was killed by Israel in 1973.
Kamal Adwan was responsible for Fatah's terrorist operations in Israel in the early 1970's and was a senior member of Black September, a secret branch of Fatah. He was killed by Israeli forces in April 1973.
Saad Sayel - Senior Fatah commander who led the PLO terrorist forces based in Lebanon during the early 1980s. Sayel was assassinated in Lebanon on Sept. 27, 1982, by unknown assailants.
Majed Abu Sharar - Fatah Central Committee member, Fatah Revolutionary Council secretary, and chief of the PLO public relations department in the 1970s and early 1980s. Abu Sharar was assassinated in Rome on Oct. 9, 1981. Al-Asifa, Fatah's military wing, claimed responsibility for the assassination of "traitor" Abu Sharar, saying he "diverged from the proper path of the Palestinian revolution and armed struggle. [He] represented the line of surrender." The PLO blamed Israel for the assassination.