We are all familiar with the Palestinian Authority’s “Pay-For-Slay” program, which provides generous subsidies to imprisoned terrorists and to the families of dead terrorists – “martyrs” who died while committing their murders. The amounts spent on this program by the PA are enormous – several hundred million dollars year — and the recipients are paid many times the average Palestinian wage. The payment of this money both rewards past acts of terror, and incentivizes future acts. The Taylor Force Act forbids American aid from being given to the PA as long as it continues with its “Pay-For-Slay” program. Unfortunately, and unforgivably, the Bidenites have chosen to ignore the Taylor Force Act, and have given more than $300 million to the PA, even though “Pay-For-Slay” payments continue. How it manages to defy the law so blatantly – where is Congress? Where are the courts? — remains a puzzlement.
Money is not the only way to encourage Palestinians, especially the young, to become terrorists. The PA glorifies terrorists, who are given pride of place in the Palestinian pantheon, by naming schools, and streets, and squares after them. Their faces – among them Leila Khaled, Dalal Mughrabi, Ahlam Tamimi, Marwan Barghouti – stare down from billboards. They are celebrated in television programs, including those aimed at the very young. Books are written about them. Films are made. Not athletes, nor actors, nor writers, nor artists, but terrorists are the fixed stars in the Palestinian firmament.
Another way the PA encourages terrorists is to glorify those who produced them. A report on one such example is here: “‘We are proud of all’ the terrorist murderers, says Fatah deputy chairman,” by Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch, November 9, 2021:
While PA and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is keen to present himself as “moderate” and “peace-seeking” to the international community, the statements by the person he appointed to be Fatah Deputy Chairman tell a different story.
Fatah’s no. 2, Mahmoud Al-Aloul glorifies terrorists and murderers of Israelis and promotes them as unequalled in “value.”
Thus Al-Aloul praised all imprisoned Palestinian terrorists as “a large group of beloved people,” noting that Palestinians are “proud of them all.” Al-Aloul made this statement while sitting next to the PA’s terror mom – Um Nasser Abu Hmeid – a Palestinian woman famous and honored by the PA for being the mother of 5 terrorist prisoners who are responsible for at least 10 murders and all serving life sentences. Accordingly, Al-Aloul praised her as “a giant of endurance”…
The glorification by the PA of Um Nasser Abu Hmeid for her great achievement in furthering the Cause of Palestine, that of giving birth to five sons, each of whom became a jihad terrorist and took part in the murder of a total of ten Israeli civilians, is one more bit of evidence that the PA, despite the “no-one-here-but-us-accountants” routine of the “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas, is just as interested in promoting terrorism as are Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Ever since 2010, Um Hmeid has been made much of by the PA. In that year, she received the “Plaque of Resoluteness and Giving” from then-Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs Issa Karake, at a solemn ceremony where she was praised thus:
“The Palestinian mother is a central partner in the struggle…
It is she who gave birth to the fighters, and she deserves
that we bow to her in salute and in honor.”
In 2011, the PA chose Hmeid as the person to launch their statehood campaign with the UN.
In a widely publicized event, the PA had Latifa Abu Hmeid lead the procession to the UN offices in Ramallah and to hand over a letter for the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
In 2015, on Mother’s Day, the District Governor of Ramallah Laila Ghannam honored Um Nasser Abu Hmeid, who the official PA daily described as “one of the living examples of a Palestinian woman and mother contributing in all areas.” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 22, 2015) Showing this “exemplary behavior,” the paper listed Hmeid’s contributions to society: Hmeid “sacrificed a Martyr [that is, he was killed] from among her children for the homeland, her entire family was arrested, and four of [her sons] are still in the occupation’s detention camps and are serving sentences more severe than a life sentence.”
Again, in 2015, the Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs, Issa Karake, honored Hmeid with a visit to her home and made statements to the press about “the defense of the prisoners and their human rights,” including her four imprisoned sons.
On International Women’s day, in 2015, the PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs held an event to honor its female employees as well as female prisoners in Israeli prisons. Among the guests of honor was Um Nasser Abu Hmeid, whom the official Palestinian Authority daily described as the “mother of four prisoners sentenced to life in the occupation’s prisons.”
At the event, PA Parliament Member and Director of the PLO commission [of Prisoners’ Affairs] Issa Karake venerated “the Palestinian woman” for being “a maker of men and of the future”:
The honoring of the Palestinian woman on her special day stems from loyalty to her role as a maker of men and of the future, and in recognition of her long-standing sacrifice which no one can deny, through giving birth, education and orientation. She is the Martyr (Shahida), the prisoner, the wounded and expelled one, the mother, sister, wife and daughter of all of those.
This “maker of men” produced five murderers, and for that, she has been constantly honored in ceremony after ceremony, in visits to her home by officials, in the awarding of plaques, in laudatory articles in the PA newspaper. She’s a ghastly Muslim version of the Iowa mother who produced the “five fighting Sullivan Brothers,” who served, and died, together on the U.S.S. Juneau.
It’s not only the jihad terrorists, such as Dalia Mughrabi, Leila Khaled, Ahlam Tamimi, and Marwan Barghouti, who are made much of by the PA. It’s also those who produce the terrorists who are also honored, and none more so than Um Nasser Abu Hmeid.
