Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) has held a military funeral honoring as a hero Ahmed Jbarra, known by his nom de guerre, Ahmed Abu al-Sukkar, a terrorist who murdered 13 Jews and wounded and maimed another 60 in the July 4, 1975 ‘refrigerator bombing’ in Jerusalem’s Zion Square. This latest episode of obscenely honoring a Jew-killer merely underscores the PA’s continuing encouragement and support for terrorism.
Jbarra was a member of Abbas’ Fatah, whose Constitution calls for the destruction of Israel (Article 12) and the use of terrorism as an indispensable element in the campaign to achieve that goal (Article 19). Jbarra was sentenced to life in prison and an additional 30 years for his role in the terror attack, but was released by Israel in 2003. Following his release, arch-terrorist and PA president Yasser Arafat appointed Jbarra a special adviser. Senior PA officials said at the time that the decision to appoint Jbarra to the new post was a “natural” one, taking into consideration his “great contribution to the Palestinian cause” (‘“Fridge bomber” named special adviser to Arafat,’ Tom Gross Media, June 18, 2003).
For his funeral, the PA draped Jbarra’s coffin in a Palestinian flag and placed it on a PA military vehicle, which transferred him to the center of Ramallah and from there to burial in his hometown of Turmus Aiya north of Ramallah. PA President Mahmoud Abbas published a statement mourning Jbarra, whom he described as a faithful struggler for freedom and the Palestinian cause who had devoted many years to serving the interests of his people. At the funeral, one of Abbas’s top aides, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, said that, “Palestine has lost a great leader and fighter who spent his life in Israeli prisons” (Khaled Abu Toameh, ‘PA holds military funeral for former Fatah terrorist who murdered 14, injured 60,’ Jerusalem Post, July 18, 2013).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “The ZOA has long maintained that Mahmoud Abbas, the PA that he heads and the Fatah party that controls it and which he co-founded, are unreconstructed supporters of terrorism and not genuine moderates and peace makers. The latest evidence of Abbas’ obscene and shameless honoring of the murderer of 13 Israelis in Jerusalem’s Zion Square simply and incontrovertibly demonstrates this fact.
“Think of it: when Jbarra was released by Israel to the PA in 2003, Palestinian youth belonging to the Fatah youth movement mobbed him in Ramallah’s Park Hotel lobby, greeting him and kissing him on both cheeks.”
“That is how Palestinian youth are raised — not merely by Hamas in Gaza, but by Abbas’ Fatah, the supposedly ‘moderate’ peace-seekers to whom Israel is under pressure to make dangerous, one-sided concessions.
“As we noted repeatedly, it is clear that the Fatah/PA still does not accept Israel’s existence as a Jewish state; that it seeks its destruction; that it demands the so-called ‘right of return’ whereby Israel would be inundated with Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war and their millions of descendants; and that it will not conclude the conflict, even were a peace agreement to be signed.
“The ZOA renews its call for President Obama and the U.S. Congress to demand rescission of the Fatah Constitution and the immediate termination of the obscene Fatah/PA practice of honoring Jew-killing terrorists, failing which, U.S. aid to the PA should be terminated.”