Abbas: Terrorists are "our heroes"

Israelis leaders anxiously look to Mahmoud Abbas as a potential peace partner, largely because of his moderate statements in English. However, his Arabic statements continue to show admiration for even the most depraved terrorists. Likewise, Abbas rejects terror for tactical reasons only -- not because it is immoral.

During a television interview this week, Abbas twice referred to those terrorists serving "tens of life sentences" in Israeli jails as "our heroes." The terrorists who are serving "tens of life sentences" are those arch terrorists who have personally killed tens of Israelis,, and are sentenced to one life sentence for each murder. These are the people whom Mahmoud Abbas calls "our heroes."

In the statement on PA TV about the jailed terrorists' recent attempts to bring peace between the Fatah and Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas expressed his satisfaction with the: "initiative of our brothers, our jailed heroes, who have presented a similar initiative [for dialogue] . . . the initiative proves that these heroes, who are sentenced to tens of life sentences, feel too that the homeland is in danger..." [PA TV May 23, 2006]

As PMW has reported in the past, even in his so-called "condemnations" of terror attacks, Abbas has always been careful in Arabic not to condemn terror because it is evil or immoral. He has criticized suicide terror only because it hurts the PA cause, as he did after the December 2005 suicide attack that killed five in Netanya.

Click here to read PMW bulletin, "PA on Terror: 'Condemns' on paper, praises in practice".

PMW Comment:

Israeli and Western leaders are so eager to find a viable partner for peace that they often mistake Palestinian Authority leaders' "lip service" in English as statements of truly peaceful intentions. But as PMW has reported for the past decade, the only way to understand these leaders' real opinions is to pay attention to what they are telling their own people in Arabic. These are the only messages that count.

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