14-Nov-13: One person's Palestinian Arab savagery is another's political campaign

London, October 2012: For the rent-a-crowd protestors, there's really no difference between
'political' prisoners and psychopaths [Image Source] 

The murder of a sleeping Israeli teenager by means of an act of savage butchery is, predictably, hailed as an expression of some sick form of heroism in the circles that have elevated such barbarism to a way of life.

The author of the words below is Fawzy Barhoom, Hamas spokesman, writing on his Facebook page [Source: IDF Blog].

“Congratulations to the Palestinian West Bank hero who killed an Israeli soldier in Afula this morning... This is a heroic act of resistance showing that all methods of oppression and terror have not and will not succeed in stopping our people from carrying out jihad and resistance. We call on our people and the Palestinian youth to take part in the movement of the resistance, no matter the sacrifice.”

Barhoom of Hamas has a long history of lavishing praise on perverted acts of extreme violence carried out in the name of the values he and his cohort represent. 

For instance, when eight unarmed high school boys in a Jerusalem seminary [background] were remorselessly gunned down by a Jerusalem Arab who had been a truck driver for a company that routinely made deliveries to their school, it was this same Barhoom who extravagantly praised the heroism of the killer. That was in 2008. 

Puts him at the furthest extreme of the Palestinian Arab spectrum, right?

Not really. As politically incorrect as it may sound to say so, Barhoom accurately reflected widespread sentiment among Palestinian Arabs. 

The 'political' prisoner/freedom fighter in the poster
on the right has murdered 66 people so far. He says explicitly
he wants to kill more. Deserves a support rally, no?

How widespread? We can reflect on what the New York Times reported at the time:

A new poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the attack... According to the poll, of 1,270 Palestinians in face-to-face interviews, 84 percent supported the March 6 attack on the Mercaz Harav... The survey also shows unprecedented support for the shooting of rockets on Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip and for the end of the peace negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leaders. The pollster, Khalil Shikaki, said he was shocked... “There is real reason to be concerned,” Mr. Shikaki said in an interview at his West Bank office. His Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which conducts a survey every three months, is widely viewed as among the few independent and reliable gauges of Palestinian public opinion. [NYT, March 19, 2008]

The predictable next step, after the sacred canonization of yesterday's knife-wielding murderer, is likely to be a global campaign exploiting the usual allies, intellectuals and 'activists', urgently, angrily, righteously demanding freedom for this 'political prisoner' with the blood-drenched hands. The argument will be that he is unjustly accused by the Israelis of doing what any liberty-seeking member of an oppressed, suppressed, repressed minority would, perfectly understandably, have to do.

Tragically, when you consider recent events and the lionization - at the very highest levels of Palestinian Arab society - of acts of bestial cruelty, it's a strategy that may well succeed.