Following the two-pronged Palestinian shooting and stabbing terror attack on Friday that murdered Israeli border policewoman Hadas Malka, the Fatah political faction headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did worse than just fail to condemn the terrorism. “Instead of condemning the attack, Fatah… issued a statement in which it condemned the Border Police fighters who killed the terrorists, and praised the murderers as heroes,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. “It seems that mendacity and brazen gall know no bounds.”
Netanyahu, in comments released by his office, noted that Fatah wasn’t the only so-called moderate Palestinian group that did not respond appropriately. Noted the Israeli premier, “Of course, the Palestinian Authority [P.A.] is refusing to condemn the murder and the same Authority will now pay financial compensation to the murderers’ families.” That issue of the P.A. payments has created international concern, with the United States being troubled by it. Meanwhile, two different Palestinian terror groups claimed credit for last week’s murder.
The Ma’an News Agency reported that Hamas claimed one and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claimed two of the three terrorists who launched the attack. Ma’an quoted a Hamas spokesman as calling the terrorism a piece of their resistance while PFLP lauded the terrorists as “heroes”.
Israeli Prime Minister’s Office spokesman Ofir Gendelman posted an English version of the PFLP statement to Twitter, in which the Palestinian group plans to fight for not just the so-called West Bank, but the Land of Israel itself from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea. The PFLP said it “renews its pledge to our Palestinian people, with blood and promise and determination, until the return and liberation and formation of our state on the entirety of the Palestinian national soil, from the river to the sea.”
While the Palestinians were celebrating, the Israelis were grieving the loss of a 23-year-old woman. “Their grief is our grief; their sorrow is that of the entire nation,” said Netanyahu. “Hadas was a young person full of life. She was imbued with a sense of mission of defending the State of Israel.”
In response to not only the terrorism, but the Palestinian celebration and support of it, Netanyahu urged the global community to respond. “I call on the countries of the world to condemn both the murder and those who praise it, and demand the immediate cessation of Palestinian Authority payments to the families of terrorists, something that only encourages terror.”
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, June 18, 2017)