PA daily op-ed: Israeli Arab terrorist who killed 3 in Tel Aviv “is a Palestinian Martyr”

Headline: “Do not create a crisis for no reason”
     “A few impulsive people from among our people have accused the [PA] Ministry of Health of things to which it has no connection, because it did not add Martyr (Shahid) Nashat [Melhem] to the lists of the uprising’s Martyrs. This matter forced the ministry to issue a clarification, which expressed the national position regarding the way in which Martyrs are recognized… Everyone knows that the Palestinian people in the Galilee, the Triangle (i.e., a concentration of Israeli-Arab towns and villages in northern Israel), and the Negev are an original part of our people that cannot be relinquished, but this part has its own conditions and forms of struggle. Feelings cannot be allowed to blind the zealots and push them to stumble, which harms the Ministry of Health employees… Nashat Melhem is a Palestinian Martyr, despite the opposition of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, [Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe] Ya'alon, and other [Israeli] government ministers. The logic and war crimes of Israel’s leaders are what caused Nashat to respond in kind to the racist [ethnically] cleansing Zionism.”

Nashat Melhem - 29-year-old Israeli Arab terrorist who carried out a shooting attack, killing 2 Israelis, Alon Bakal and Shimon Ruimi, and wounding 8 others, at Hasimta bar in Tel Aviv on Jan. 1, 2016. Melhem fled the scene, and later that day killed a taxi driver, Bedouin Israeli Amin Shaaban, in another part of Tel Aviv. A week after the attacks, on Jan. 8, 2016, Israeli security forces tracked down Melhem in a building in his hometown of Arara in the north of Israel. After Melhem opened fire at them, the Israeli security forces shot and killed him.