A Palestinian municipal employee disinfects a street at the entrance to the West Bank city of Bethlehem on March 12, 2020. Photo: Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90.

Palestinian media is filled with the news of the “martyrdom” and funeral for Hussein Masalma.

Masalma, 39, was arrested on November 22, 2002 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released this past February after he was diagnosed with leukemia, and he remained in Israel’s Hadassah Hospital under treatment by some of the world’s best doctors until September 13, when he was transferred to Istishari Hospital in Ramallah. He died this week.

Palestinian media is saying that Israel is responsible for his death, with many articles implying that somehow Israel’s interrogation of Masalma caused his leukemia. Some even called his death from cancer an “assassination.”

Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement called a general strike in Bethlehem to celebrate the terrorist. Unions joined in, and schools were closed in Bethlehem. Masalma was given a full military funeral by Fatah.

Wattan writes, “With the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, the prisoner Masalma became involved in the struggle and resistance to the occupation, until he was arrested on November 22, 2002.”

But why was Masalma arrested?

Almost certainly, he was involved in planning a suicide bombing against Jewish civilians.

This was during the height of the Second Intifada, when there were many such suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

The governate of Bethlehem and the political party of Mahmoud Abbas are openly mourning someone who planned to murder innocent Jewish civilians.

The depravity of all this can be seen in the video below, where Masalma’s body was brought to his mother’s house, as Palestinian women ululated in celebration of his “martyrdom.”

Masalma’s mother says in the video that the terrorist “asked for martyrdom, and he obtained it, and he commanded me not to cry over him.” She is regarded as a wonderful person in the comments and she is congratulated for being the mother of a “groom” — being married in heaven to 70 virgin brides.

This is the Palestinian society that the Western media tries so hard to hide. It is an entire culture that openly celebrates terrorism and death. This hasn’t changed over time, even as Palestinian society has been airbrushed by the media, turning those who celebrate death into helpless victims of Israeli aggression.

Elder of Ziyon has been blogging about Israel and the Arab world for a really long time now. He also controls the world, but deep down, you already knew that.