Abbas: Pay Terrorist Families
New York – Mahmoud Abbas, holocaust denier and chief of the Palestinian Authority (PA), has named its newly-opened Rafah border crossing the Shahid (martyr) Al-Aqha, in honor of the terrorist killer Al-Moayed Bihokmillah Al-Aqha, who was killed in December 2004 carrying out a terrorist attack that killed five Israelis (Palestinian Media Watch, December 15).
In addition, on the very day that Abbas criticized Monday’s terrorist attack in Netanya that killed six Israelis and wounded 30, he approved a law and budget designed to pay money to families of such terrorists who die while murdering Jews. This law refers to those terrorists as shahids or martyrs, a shahid is the highest honor attainable to a Muslim and signifies a death for Allah.
The PA regularly labels suicide killers as “Shahids”. The sum of the allowance is estimated to be $250 per month, but if the shahid was married [at the time of death], another $50 are to be added to the sum mentioned above, and if the shahid had children, [an additional sum of] $15 will be allocated to each of them. In addition, if the shahid had a [living] father or mother, a sum of $25 will be allocated to each of them. If the shahid had brothers, whom he had been taking care of, each of them will be allocated [a sum of] $15. This is only the most recent outrage clearly illustrating Abbas’ promotion and support of terrorism against Israel.
In August this year, Palestinian Media Watch revealed that the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Culture released, as its official ‘Book of the Month,’ a collection of poems named in honor of Hanadi Jaradat, a terrorist ‘shahida’ who murdered 21 people in Haifa’s Maxim restaurant in October 2003. Likewise, on July 25 this year, the Palestinian Authority’s official paper labelled as shahids two terrorists who were killed after murdering an Israeli civilian couple two days previously.
Two weeks before that, Palestinian Media Watch noted that a course for women, sponsored by the Palestinian Authority’s ruling party Fatah, had been named in honor of the first woman suicide bomber, the ‘Shahida’ Wafa Idris. This followed an established pattern of many years in which Idris has been honored by the Palestinian Authority – including in a “course in democracy and human rights.” Details can be seen here. In July 2003, the Palestinian Authority organised a football (soccer) tournament named in honor of the suicide bomber ‘shahid’ that murdered 29 people on Passover Eve in Netanya’s Park Hotel.
ZOA President Morton A. Klein said, “How much more evidence do we need to prove that Abbas is Arafat in a suit. We strongly believe that President Bush should consider cutting all funds to the PA and ending negotiations with Abbas by naming border crossings, schools, streets and sports teams after terrorists and rewarding terrorist families with money only glorifies and literally rewards terrorism. When will Abbas and the PA be held accountable; when will we say the emperor has no clothes.”