Quote Box: Soul-searching in Israel after mob attack, While Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas calls for “peaceful resistance” to Israel and has — publicly, at least — supported the idea of a return to the negotiating table amid a wave of Palestinian terror, senior members of his Fatah movement are openly praising lone-wolf attacks, arguing that the era of dialogue with Israel is over.
In an interview on Palestinian TV Saturday, Jibril Rajoub, former chief of the powerful Preventative Security Force in the West Bank and currently deputy secretary-general of Fatah’s Central Committee, praised individual attacks against Israelis as acts of noble self-sacrifice.
“Clearly, these are individual attacks, but they are heroic, characterized by self-control and a value system,” Rajoub said, citing “the will for the martyr” posted on Facebook by Jabel Mukaber terrorist Bahaa Allyan — who killed two Israelis and injured others in an attack on a Jerusalem city bus last week — in which Allyan asked that no Palestinian faction claim responsibility for his act.
“This [will] should become a document taught in schools about the meaning of martyrdom and patriotism, rather than factionalism,” said Rajoub in the interview.For Abbas, the current wave of violence has presented a dilemma. On the one hand, he believes that armed attacks against Israelis have proven counterproductive in advancing the Palestinian agenda internationally; on the other, he is pushed to condone (or at least ignore) such actions by a militant street and a party rank and file which has never abandoned Fatah’s “revolutionary” credentials.
In an interview on Palestinian TV Saturday, Jibril Rajoub, former chief of the powerful Preventative Security Force in the West Bank and currently deputy secretary-general of Fatah’s Central Committee, praised individual attacks against Israelis as acts of noble self-sacrifice.
“Clearly, these are individual attacks, but they are heroic, characterized by self-control and a value system,” Rajoub said, citing “the will for the martyr” posted on Facebook by Jabel Mukaber terrorist Bahaa Allyan — who killed two Israelis and injured others in an attack on a Jerusalem city bus last week — in which Allyan asked that no Palestinian faction claim responsibility for his act.
“This [will] should become a document taught in schools about the meaning of martyrdom and patriotism, rather than factionalism,” said Rajoub in the interview.For Abbas, the current wave of violence has presented a dilemma. On the one hand, he believes that armed attacks against Israelis have proven counterproductive in advancing the Palestinian agenda internationally; on the other, he is pushed to condone (or at least ignore) such actions by a militant street and a party rank and file which has never abandoned Fatah’s “revolutionary” credentials.
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