PA attacks US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman
PA attacks US Ambassador to Israel
David Friedman
David Friedman
By Maurice Hirsch, Adv.
On July 30, 2018, US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, visited the grieving widow of Yotam Ovadia, who was murdered four days prior by a 17-year-old Palestinian terrorist, Tareq Dar Yusuf.Following the visit, the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates was quick to issue a statement in which it referred to Ambassador Friedman as the "Trump administration's Ambassador to Tel Aviv," as opposed to Israel, and condemned the visit:
"The [PA] Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates strongly condemns the provocative visits that the ambassador of Trump's administration to Tel Aviv David Friedman is making to settlements in the occupied West bank, with the latest provocative visit having taken place in the settlement of Adam. These official American visits are always welcomed by the leaders of the settlements, who consider the visit to be confirmation of the American administration's support for the settlement enterprise on the occupied land of Palestine."
[Website of the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs, July 31, 2018;
Facebook page of the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs, July 31, 2018;
Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 1, 2018]
While the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates was quick to condemn Ambassador Friedman's visit, no PA condemnation of the murder itself has, to date, been published. The opposite is true. The day after the murder, the PA and Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party declared Dar Yusuf a "Martyr" (Shahid), entitling his family to receive a one-time grant of 6,000 shekels ($1,643) and a monthly allowance for life of 1,400 shekels ($383). By declaring Dar Yusuf a 'Martyr' the PA is saying that he did an exemplary act according to Islam, for which he will be rewarded in the afterlife by Allah.
This is not the first time that the PA and its officials have verbally attacked US Ambassador Friedman. In March, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas referred to him as a "son of a bitch". In January, Abbas said that he and US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, are "an insult to an administration that respects itself." In September 2017, Mahmoud Abbas' advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash described him and Americans in general as being motivated by a "satanic urge" and having "lost all morals."
Yotam Ovadia - 31-year-old Israeli father of two, who was stabbed and murdered in Adam, north of Jerusalem, by Palestinian terrorist Muhammad Tareq Dar Yusuf on July 26, 2018. Yusuf also wounded two other Israelis, and was shot and killed by one of them.