“The Palestinian leadership and people stand in solidarity with France and remain committed to nonviolence; we are opposed to any acts of extremism or terror targeting innocent civilians.”Yet Ashrawi's Miftah organization praises suicide bombers:
Palestinian women have also participated in the resistance. As the conflict grew more intense and young men were recruited to carry out military operations against Israeli targets, several young women also decided to join the ranks of the resistance movement. In January 2002, 28-year-old nurse Wafa Idrees, detonated a bomb in Jerusalem’s Jaffa Street, killing one Israeli and injuring 150 others. She was also killed in the blast.Miftah also published on its website, without any caveat, a report on the "General Arab Conference to Support the Resistance" which extols suicide bombers by referring to the "Blessed Al Aqsa Intifada."
This marked the beginning of a string of Palestinian women dedicated to sacrificing their lives for the cause. Over the next two years, seven other women carried out similar operations, the most deadly of which was carried out by Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old attorney from Jenin. Hanadi detonated explosives strapped to her body in a busy Haifa restaurant, killing 19 Israelis and injuring 50 others.
Miftah condones terror today (cached here):
Resistance in all forms against the armed colonial settlers and the army of occupation is a legitimate form of the struggle for freedom...Suicide bombing is the ultimate cry of help....
13-year old Hillel Yaffe Ariel, murdered in her bedroom, was one of those "armed colonial settlers" Miftah is referring to.
Miftah has also published an article calling terror attacks "a moral duty" - an article that is still on its website today as well: (cache)
Many of our efforts to defy the arbitrary rules of the occupier are reflexively dismissed as “terrorism,” and we are always expected to apologize for and condemn Palestinian resistance—despite the lack of agreement on a definition of terrorism, and the fact that the right to self-determination by armed struggle is permissible under the United Nations Charter’s Article 51, concerning self-defense.Blowing oneself up to kill Jews is poetry.
There also is a trend among those who oppose Palestinian resistance to use the term “jihad” as a synonym for terrorism. In doing so, they reduce the meaning of jihad to mere death. Jihad is a rich concept which includes struggling against one’s lesser self, the effort to do good deeds, actively opposing injustice, and being patient in times of hardship. It is not about violence against God’s creatures, or not fearing death in defending the rights of God’s creations. Violence can, however, be a rational human’s means of defense. When a woman reacts violently when threatened with rape, that is a form of jihad.
Moreover, jihad is an Islamic value—and not all Palestinian fighters are Muslims. The reason why young, sincere altruistic Palestinians blow themselves up is a secret they take with them to the grave. Perhaps it is the strange fruit of revenge growing in the fertile soil of oppression and occupation, or their profound protest against merciless cruelty; or a desperate attempt at attaining equality with Israelis in death, since it is impossible for them in life.
Even though Miftah says that of course they are against killing innocent civilians, their website sure seems to bend over backwards to make those who do that seem as wonderful as possible.
And this is Hanan Ashrawi's organization, still including these paeans to terrorism on its website three years after I first exposed them.
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