Pictured Above: Family and friends carry the body of Rabbi Achiad Ettinger, 47, and a father of 12, who died after being shot in a terror attack near Ariel, during his funeral in Petach Tikvah, attended by more than 1,000 people on March 18, 2019. Photo by Hillel Maeir/Flash90.

(JNS) Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas addressed a group of visiting Harvard University students last week, speaking in Arabic through an interpreter in English, saying that he believes in “peace and security for everyone,” and has made agreements with 82 nations in the world and joined the “war on terror in all its forms, variations and sources.”

Meanwhile, according to Palestinian Media Watch, his deputy, Mahmoud Al-Aloul, speaking to a Palestinians, praised the terrorist who murdered two Israelis, saying, “We are extremely proud [of] this Omar Abu Laila [who] … represents all young Palestinians.” [Posted on the official Fatah Facebook page]

On March 17, Omar Abu Laila murdered 19-year-old IDF Sgt. Gal Kaidan and 47-year-old Rabbi Achiad Ettinger, a father of 12, in a terror attack at the Ariel Junction. He was killed two days later by Israeli soldiers while resisting arrest.

“This is yet another striking example of the hypocrisy and duplicity of P.A. leaders,” explained Nan Jacques Zilberdik, a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch. “On the same day that Abbas presents himself and the Palestinian Authority as rejecting terror and promoting peace, his deputy chairman of Fatah and possible next leader … told Palestinians that he is proud of murderer Omar Abu Laila, who had just killed two Israelis.”

Al-Aloul even presented the terrorist as “representing all young Palestinians,” said Zilberdik. “This is a well-rehearsed modus operandi in the Palestinian Authority.”

In 2014, PMW exposed that when Abbas spoke with Israeli students he talked about the shared desire for peace, but previously, when he spoke to Palestinians he praised the murderer of two Israeli students as a “heroic brother.” Furthermore, the P.A. not only glorifies all murderers of Israelis—presenting them as role models—but continues to pay salaries to terrorists in prison, even when they can’t pay the salaries of their civil servants.

Itamar Marcus, director of PMW, expressed concern: “The P.A. continues to be a terror-supporting entity and until international leaders realize that and respond to it, there can never be meaningful steps for peace. Only when world leaders recognize that the P.A. and Fatah can only be trusted in what they say to their own people, and insist that the P.A. reject terror and fight terror in a meaningful way among Palestinians, and not merely pretend to do so to Harvard students, can a serious dialogue towards peace begin.”

Sephardic News

http://sephardic.org/

editor@sephardic.org