As always, glorifying death and, in particular, the murder of those whom the Qur’an dubs “the most intense of the people in animosity toward the believers” (5:82).
“Palestinian football teams named after terrorists,” by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, November 13:
Two different Palestinian football tournaments recently included teams named after terrorists. Four teams were named after terrorists who were behind some of the most lethal attacks murdering Israeli civilians.
Although these were not official Palestinian Authority tournaments, the fact that the Palestinian organizers chose to name teams after these terrorists testifies to the success of the PA policy to present terrorist killers as role models for Palestinians.
In a tournament held at Al-Quds University, teams were named after terrorists Yahya Ayyash, Dalal Mughrabi, and Ghassan Kanafani.
Yahya Ayyash was the first Hamas suicide bomb builder and planner, known as “the Engineer.” He is considered the founder of Palestinian suicide terror, and was behind attacks killing dozens of Israelis and injuring hundreds.
Dalal Mughrabi led the most lethal terror attack in Israel’s history in 1978, when she and other terrorists hijacked a bus and killed 37 civilians, 12 of them children.
Ghassan Kanafani was a writer and a leader of the terror organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP has planned and carried out numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians since its founding in 1967.
In another tournament, a team was named after terrorist Ziyad Da’as:
Ziyad Da’as was a commander of Tanzim, a Fatah terror faction, and planned a terror attack at a Bat-Mitzvah celebration in Hadera on Jan. 17, 2002, in which a terrorist gunman killed six and wounded dozens. Da’as also participated in the kidnapping and murder of Etgar Zeituni and Motti Dayan in Tulkarem in January 2001. Da’as was killed during a fire exchange with Israeli military police in August 2002.
Reporting from the tournament that included a team named after Da’as, the official PA daily wrote:
“At the end of the special tournament, the heroic Martyrs who fulfilled their duty to the homeland were honored… Muhammad Tamouni, the Martyr’s brother, dedicated the big win and the tournament’s success to the souls of his brother and all of Palestine’s Martyrs, who are more honorable than all of us. Tamouni said that this tournament will continue to take place annually in order to remember the heroes whom we will never forget.”…