JNS interviews PMW director on terror glorifying event held in Nazareth that PMW exposed

Arabs in Israel maintain a higher quality of life than their brethren in most other places in the Middle East, yet a significant number continue to support the Palestinian-Arab struggle against the Jewish state.

One of the latest incidents occurred in the Arab city of Nazareth, where the municipality, headed by Mayor Ali Salam, held a recent event that ended up glorifying terrorist murderer Baha Alyan, who along with an accomplice murdered three Israelis on a bus in Jerusalem last year.
“Hundreds of elementary and high school students and young men and women of all ages arranged themselves in rows” holding books in their laps, a formation they called a “chain of readers,” in the event organized by the Nazareth municipality and the Inma'a Association for Democracy and Capacity Building, the Jerusalem-based Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds reported last month, according to Palestinian Media Watch.

Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch, told JNS.org that when Nazareth officials were notified about the report, they insisted that they never knew about the event’s intention to glorify terrorism.

“They said that in spite of what the press reported, the municipality only approved the readers chain” and did not have prior knowledge about the praise for Alyan, Marcus said.

Indeed, it appears likely that Mayor Salam had no prior knowledge of the plans to glorify a terrorist, since he has been waging an ongoing public battle against Arab politicians whom he accuses of radicalism…