Halpern: Radicalizing the girls

Palestinian leaders hold up female terrorists as role models

by Micah D. Halpern

Issue of January 15, 2010/ 29 Tevet 5770

The United States is hounding Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. Israel is not adverse to the idea. The problem is that Israel has no one with whom to make peace.

Can a country engage in a peace process when there is no partner for peace?

The United States, from the president to the secretary of state to the special envoy to the Middle East, hold current Palestinian leadership in good standing, even in high esteem. Israel holds them in contempt. Israel considers them to be supporters of terror.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, appointed to his position by the president, have embraced “the Shaheed,” the “terrorist model” as an educational model for Palestinian children. And they’ve taken it a step further.  Abbas and Fayyad have reached deep into Palestinian history and are extolling women terrorists and encouraging Palestinian youth, especially girls, to view them as role models. They have even created a new word, shaheeda, the feminine for shahid, and introduced it into Arabic language and culture.

And the United States is standing silently by as Palestinian children are encouraged to aspire to become human bombs who murder innocent Israelis.

It’s bad enough that current Palestinian leadership does not have the power to deliver, even if a peace agreement is carved out. It’s bad enough that current Palestinian leadership lacks the creativity and backbone to lead Palestinians to a situation where they can live side by side with Israelis in peace. It’s bad enough that current Palestinian leadership does not have the strength to confront opponents to a peace deal.

Worst of all is that current Palestinian leadership is publicly and proudly lauding and applauding terrorists and memorializing them as heroes and heroines of the Palestinian people.

Wafa Idris was a Palestinian terrorist, a suicide bomber. In 2002 she wounded 150 people and killed one when she detonated her bomb outside a Jerusalem shoe store. Members of a Five Towns family, the Sokolows, were among the injured. Today, on Palestinian TV, you can watch a music video about Wafa Idris. Today, she has a page on Facebook.  Just recently, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a 45-minute long presentation proclaiming Wafa Idris to be a proud shaheeda of the Palestinian people.

Dalal Mughrabi is responsible for the most deadly terror attack ever perpetrated against Israel. In 1978 she masterminded the Coastal Road Massacre, killing 37 Israeli men, women and children and wounding another 71. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sponsored a celebration in honor of what would have been Mughrabi’s 50th birthday. There was a huge banner with her smiling face. The banner read: “Under the sponsorship of President Mahmoud Abbas, the Political and National Education Authority. A ceremony on the anniversary of the birth of the Bride of Cosmos, the Shaheeda Dalal Mughrabi.”

The PA has named two high schools for girls after Mughrabi. There is a computer science center named after her. Two summer camps bear her name. A sports stadium and squares in towns and cities throughout the Palestinian Authority and Gaza carry the name of this terrorist.

Current Palestinian leaders, recipients of significant U.S. tax dollars, take pride in the deadly acts perpetrated by these woman and their terrorist, mass murderer, comrades.  And the United States thinks it is wise for Israel to make peace.

Think again, United States, think again.

Micah D. Halpern is a columnist and a social and political commentator. Read his latest book THUGS. He maintains The Micah Report at www.micahhalpern.com