The tiny minority of extremists speaks in the January 16 edition of London’s Al-Quds Al-Arabi, as well as in Al-Watan of Oman and Al-Hayat of Saudi Arabia. This from Arutz Sheva, with thanks to Nicolei:
Reacting to last month’s repeated news items regarding theoretical Israeli-Syrian negotiations, London’s Al-Quds Al-Arabi (January 16) declared that terrorism (“Palestinian armed resistance”) is the Arabs’ best tool for effective and productive peace negotiations.
This echoed the Omani Al-Watan newspaper of the same day, which reacted to British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s remarks to the effect that the peace process would not continue unless Israel received assurances against terrorist operations. “For a start, the resistance against foreign occupation is not terrorism except in the eyes of imperialist countries and others that strive to oppress other people,” the Gulf newspaper declared. In fact, the editorial continued, no one has ever proposed to the Arabs in Israel a “viable alternative to blowing themselves up and leaving orphans behind.”
Furthermore, the editorial concluded, this is “true for Palestinians, but more so for the Iraqis.” . . .
The Saudi-backed Al-Hayat newspaper the same week carried an article that was a paean to the woman suicide bomber who blew herself up at the Erez checkpoint in Gaza, and to the mother of a suicide bomber who fought so that her son would have the chance to die.
As for the Erez attack, the London-based newspaper eulogized: “They will say she went into history, to reserve her people a place in the future. They will add that she lit the way; the first female martyr in the books of Hamas, the first female martyr in the Gaza strip, the first female Palestinian martyr that leaves her children and embraces the nation. The small child will never get tired of the footage Hamas distributed. He will watch it over and over again, as this female holding the rifle, used to hold him in her arms. He will learn by heart what that woman repeated before blowing herself up in the face of occupiers of her nation’s soil. She said: ‘I have always wanted to be the first female to execute a martyrdom operation in which parts of my body would scatter.'”
The Al-Hayat article went on to relate the tale of Mohamad Fathi Farhat’s mother. According to the story, as told by Hamas spokesperson Khaled Mash’al, “she wrote to the leadership of Al-Qassam Battalions, objecting her son’s denial of the request to perform a martyrdom operation [suicide bombing]. When the leadership succumbed to her request, the mother got busy with her son’s last preparations, and when she found out of his martyrdom, she wore her best clothes to accept congratulations.”