“The popular gathering around the blood of Izz Al-Din Al-Masri is an honest and true expression of our people’s yearning for national unity (between Fatah and Hamas) and unity of action.” And that unity will be steeped in hatred and rage, and directed toward the violent destruction of the State of Israel, while Barack Obama and John Kerry continue to strong-arm Israel into making yet more concessions to these genocidal jihadis.
“PA and Hamas honor Sbarro suicide bomber who murdered 15,” by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch, May 5, 2014:
The terrorist who murdered 15 in the Sbarro pizza shop suicide bombing in 2001 was given a military funeral by the PA after his body was transferred to the PA last week.
On Aug. 9, 2001 suicide bomber Izz Al-Din Al-Masri detonated himself in a Sbarro pizza shop in Jerusalem, killing 15, 7 of them children. 5 members of one family were killed in the attack. (See names below.) Palestinian Media Watch has reported that the PA in the past has honored Ahlam Tamimi, the terrorist who picked the Sbarro restaurant as the place for the bombing “because many people entered it,” and later led the bomber there. Official PA TV has also glorified her.
Last week, Israel transferred the body of the suicide bomber to the PA and both the PA and Hamas took the opportunity to honor the murderer once again. Reporting from the official military funeral, PA TV News called him a “Martyr,” the highest religious level a Muslim can reach. In calling the terrorist a Martyr – a Shahid – the PA continues to teach its people that according to its interpretation of Islam, killers of Israeli civilians in suicide terror attacks are doing such a positive act, that it overrules the general Islamic prohibition against committing suicide.
PA TV News reported that the murderer “gave his soul for the struggle of a nation that strives for freedom,” and described the terrorist’s funeral as his “wedding” to the 72 Virgins in Paradise, the great reward Islam promises to those who die as Martyrs for Allah. [Official PA TV, April 30, 2014]
Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV News glorified the suicide bomber as “victorious,” and also referred to him as a “Martyr” who now “has returned to make those who loved him happy, just as he made them happy on the day he carried out his operation 13 years ago.” The Hamas reporter glorified the terror attack killing 15 as an act that “gave the Zionists a taste of humiliation”:
“Izz Al-Din Al-Masri ascended to Paradise in a Martyrdom-seeking operation (suicide terror attack) he carried out in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem, where he gave the Zionists a taste of humiliation after killing 19 Zionists and wounding dozens… The citizens expressed their pride in Izz Al-Din’s heroism, along with the thousands who gathered to accompany him on his final journey, and they did not forget all those who played a role in this operation.” [Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), April 30, 2014]
A PA official interviewed at the funeral said:
“The popular gathering around the blood of Izz Al-Din Al-Masri is an honest and true expression of our people’s yearning for national unity (between Fatah and Hamas) and unity of action.”…