3-Jul-12: "Palestinian Arabs want a leadership with Jewish blood on its hands"

Father Georgios Tsibouktzakis, 34, one of the

victims of Marwan Barghouti's "political" campaign.

The bearded young Greek Orthodox priest, one of two monks

who lived in, and maintained, the ancient St. George

Monastery perched on the edge of Wadi Kelt, was

mistaken for a Jewish driver by Barghouti's

Jew-phobic gunmen, and paid with his life.

Writing from inside the world controlled by the Palestinian Authority, the journalist Hisham Jarallah has some views about where his society is headed. The extracts from his essay below ["The Future Leaders of Palestinians: Terrorists"] were originally published several days ago by the Gatestone Institute.

The future leaders of the Palestinians are currently sitting in Israeli prisons. They include dispatchers of suicide bombers, heads of terror cells, ordinary terrorists and political leaders of various terror groups in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

He refers to an opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research that points to a rise in the popularity of Hamas over Fatah, and in particular (something that has been noted in the past) that the convicted and imprisoned murderer Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah leader, would win a presidential election if it were held today.

Palestinians prefer someone like Barghouti to lead them because he launched terror attacks on Israelis and is sitting in Israeli prison. The fact that Barghouti's attacks resulted in the death of a number of Jews gives him leadership credentials. He is popular among Palestinians because he has Jewish blood on his hands and was involved in "armed resistance." Barghouti, according to the poll, would even defeat Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh if they ran against him in a presidential election. 

Moderates and technocrats like Salam Fayyad, the current prime minister in the Abbas regime, are going nowhere politically because they did not take part in terrorism directly:

Fayyad never spent a day in Israel prison and that is enough -- as far as many Palestinians are concerned -- to disqualify him as a future leader. The U.S.-educated Fayyad, in other words, is too moderate and too peaceful and too educated. Palestinians adored Yasser Arafat mainly because he was a symbol of the armed struggle against Israel. They loved his military uniform and pistol because they were viewed as a symbol of the armed struggle against Israel. Arafat was loved because he was personally responsible for dozens, if not hundreds, of terror attacks against Israel... Economic prosperity and the peace process with Israel are not going to convince most Palestinians to vote for people like Fayyad or Abbas.

Here's the money line: 

Moderate Palestinians who are opposed to violence and terror will have no say in the future decision-making process. All this bodes ill for the peace process and stability in the region. If anything, the results of the poll show that the Palestinians are headed toward further radicalization.

Their fetishization of mass murderers goes well beyond radicalization, in our view. The idea that Barghouti, who was indirectly involved in our child's murder and who masterminded numerous other killings of unarmed, innocent people - guilty only of being Jewish - is a serious contender to represent and lead the Palestinian Arabs is an indictment of their values and their society.