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February 15, 2019 7:58 am
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A Gruesome Palestinian Choice: Can a Rapist Still Be a Martyr?

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avatar by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Opinion

Arafat Arfiah, 29, has admitted to murdering 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher. Photo: Yonatan Sindel / Flash90.

It sounds absurd, right? The current “ethical” dilemma facing the Palestinian Authority (PA) is this:

A Palestinian man, Arafat Arfiah, murdered 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher last week. Israeli reports stated that Arfiah had not only murdered Ansbacher, but raped her as well. This possible rape presents the PA with an absurd “ethical” dilemma.

The PA supports and pays a salary to anyone who is imprisoned for “fighting the occupation.” This means that the PA pays a salary to anyone who murders an Israeli in a terror attack, and that the PA-funded Prisoners’ Club provides legal representation to the terrorist in the Israeli court system.

However, the PA considers rape a “criminal act,” and not a “nationalistic act” opposing “the occupation.” Therefore, a rapist is not entitled to any support — legally or financially.

Thus, according to PA “ethics,” it is fine and even heroic to stab and kill a 19-year-old Israeli woman for “Palestine,” but it is unacceptable to rape her. So when a Palestinian rapes and murders, like Arfiah did, what is the PA to do?

The chairman of the PA-funded Prisoners’ Club Qadura Fares explained the twisted PA values and the resulting dilemma:

The director of the prisoners club, Qadura Fares, told Haaretz that Irfaiya’s family has not asked his group for any legal aid. ‘If there will be such a request, we will consider it and send a defense lawyer to review his claims,’ Fares, said. ‘If it turns out there really was a sexual assault, we will pass on representation. That would make the case a criminal one, as far as we’re concerned, and we object to anyone committing a criminal offense trying to pass it off as a nationalist act.’ [Haaretz, Feb. 13, 2019]

If the PA recognizes the murderer as having acted out of nationalistic motivation, they will pay him at least 1,400 shekels a month (approximately $380) from the day of his arrest; his salary will eventually reach 12,000 shekels a month — about three times the average Palestinian salary.

Official PA TV’s so-called “expert on Israeli affairs” Fayez Abbas also discussed the difference between “nationalistically motivated killing” — which the PA would support — and “criminal rape and murder”:

PA TV “Israeli affairs expert” Fayez Abbas: “We will begin with the [Israeli] newspaper Yediot Aharonot, the main headline: ‘The Israeli Security Agency: The nationalistically motivated killing of the female settler near Jerusalem.’ Of course, I want to comment. Until yesterday evening [Febuary 10, 2019] the Israeli Security Agency had no decision on this matter, but pressure from families — the family of the killed woman and also some of the politicians from the right-wing — it could be that they pressured the Israeli Security Agency to publish something like this … There is also a gag order on details about this topic — it is not only a killing [operation], but there was also the rape of the same settler girl, and afterwards she was murdered. In other words, there are those who think that it is of a criminal nature and not nationalistically motivated …” [Official PA TV, February 11, 2019]

Haaretz also quoted an unnamed “imprisoned senior Fatah official,” who expressed views that are diametrically opposite to PA views and policy, as documented by Palestinian Media Watch. The unnamed source was quoted as saying that murderer Arfiah is “not a human being” and that the murder was “unacceptable” even without the rape, because “the murder victim was no soldier, and it didn’t happen during wartime.” However, the presentation of PA and Fatah as having these moral values is completely false. PMW has documented numerous PA and Fatah statements glorifying terrorist murderers who killed Israeli civilians.

One example is enough to show that official PA policy is to honor and glorify all terrorist murderers — including murderers of young Israelis hiking in forests. Mahmoud Abbas himself honored as “heroic brother” terrorist Issa Abd Rabbo, who killed two Israeli university students — Ron Levi and Revital Seri — when they were hiking south of Jerusalem in October 1984. Abd Rabbo tied them up at gun point, put bags over their heads, and then shot and murdered them both. At the event celebrating Rabbo’s and other terrorists’ release in 2013, Abbas held up  Rabbo’s hand in front of the cheering crowd, and Abd Rabbo made the sign of victory.

This is the true face of the Palestinian Authority.

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