PA daily responds to Netanyahu video citing PA terror glorification as obstacle to peace: “The Palestinian people honors its Martyrs and heroes who defended the national identity and peace simultaneously”

Headline: “Netanyahu’s brazen message” 

Excerpt of op-ed by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, in his regular column in the official PA daily 

“Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the Israeli extreme right-wing government, last Friday [July 15, 2016] directed a TV message to [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas in English (The video cited four examples of terror support by PA and Fatah leaders, as examples of PA impediments to peace, all of which were exposed and publicized by PMW, Ed.), in order to convey its incitement to a greater segment of world public opinion. In the brazen message, Bibi [Netanyahu] turned the facts head over heel. Whoever reads the message from its last point, in which he claimed that ‘he will continue to [act] tirelessly to achieve peace,’ and added: ‘the time has come for Abbas to join these efforts,’ will think that he faces a ‘man of peace.’ However, whoever knowsthe most extreme, racist, and fascist prime minister in the history of colonial Israel, which arose on the ruins of the Nakba (i.e., “the catastrophe,” Palestinian term for the establishment of the State of Israel) of the Palestinian people in 1948 and still occupies its land, and steals and Judaizes it and the Palestinian people’s interests, knows that the leader of the Likud (i.e., Israeli political party) is the enemy of peace… 

Regarding his first [Netanyahu’s], second, third, and fourth [point], it can be summarized as a purely demagogic campaign of incitement against President Abbas and the Palestinian leadership, and as brazen and worthless dictates. One of these [points] was a call to expel [Advisor to Abbas on NGOs and] Fatah leadership member Sultan Abu Al-Einein because of a statement that he absolutely did not mean (i.e., Al-Einein’s call on June 27, 2016 to cut off the head of every Israeli, as reported by PMW)…

Regarding your [Netanyahu’s] opposition to the honoring of our heroes, like Abu Sukkar (i.e., terrorist, murdered 15), Dalal Mughrabi (i.e., terrorist, murdered 37), and such, this is absolutely absurd of you and your colonialist state that steals Palestinian land. How is it permissible for you to be proud of murderers like [former Prime Ministers Menachem] Begin, [Ariel] Sharon, [and Yitzhak] Shamir, [Baruch] Goldstein (i.e., Jewish extremist who murdered 29 Palestinians), [former Minister of Tourism] Rehavam Ze’evi, [Rabbi Meir] Kahane (i.e., Israeli right-wing MP), [Rabbi Moshe] Levinger (i.e., active in the Israeli settlement movement, one of the founders of Kiryat Arba, adjacent to Hebron) , and everyone who took part in massacres of the Palestinian Arab people… How is it permissible for you, you, the murderers that steal the Palestinian land and interests, to honor your murderers and erect monuments to them, while you oppose that the Palestinian people honors its Martyrs (Shahids) and heroes who defended the national identity and peace simultaneously.”

Ahmad JabarahAbu Sukkar (“Abu Sukkar”) - planned a bombing attack in 1975 in which a refrigerator filled with explosives was detonated in Jerusalem. 15 people were killed and over 60 people were wounded. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years, but was released from prison after 28 years as part of a goodwill gesture from Israel to the PA in 2003. He was a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council and an advisor to Arafat on prisoners' affairs. He died of a heart attack in 2013 in the PA.

Dalal Mughrabi led the most lethal terror attack in Israel’s history, known as the Coastal Road massacre, in 1978, when she and other Fatah terrorists hijacked a bus on Israel's Coastal Highway, killing 37 civilians, 12 of them children, and wounding over 70.

Cave of the Patriarchs massacre - On Feb. 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a member of an Israeli far-right movement, opened fire on Muslims praying inside the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, known to Muslims as the "Ibrahimi Mosque," killing 29 and wounding 125. Following the attack, which was widely condemned by Israeli leaders and Jewish communities abroad, the Israeli government took concrete steps to prevent similar attacks from occurring by dividing the area of worship into Muslim and Jewish sections and designating several extremist movements, including Goldstein’s, as illegal terrorist groups.

 Meir Kahane - American Israeli rabbi with right-wing views, who was elected to the Israeli Parliament in 1984. His views included the belief that Arabs should be “transferred” out of Israel - preferably by encouraging them to leave and compensating them for their property, but if that was unsuccessful, then by deportation. In 1988, Kahane’s party, Kach, was banned in Israel for being racist and anti-democratic.Kahane was assassinated on Nov. 5, 1990, by an Egyptian American.