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Palestinian Arabs

PA daily calls murderer ?a beacon of light?


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
May 10, 2004

Samir Kuntar is “a beacon of light” for having slaughtered an Israeli father and his two young daughters in a terrorist attack in 1979, according to the PA-controlled daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida.

On Thursday the PA daily featured an article labeling Kuntar an “authentic role model” for all Palestinian Arabs.

Kuntar has recently made headlines as the centerpiece of another possible prisoner exchange between Israel and the Lebanese terror group Hizballah.

In return for the killer, Israel would reportedly receive the bodies of several dead IDF soldiers, as well as information on missing aviator Ron Arad.

Glorified killer

In 1979 Samir Kuntar led a group of terrorist infiltrators from Lebanon into northern Israel.

After making their way to the coastal town of Nahariya, the terrorists broke into the apartment of Dani and Smadar Haran.

Finding only Dani and his five-year-old daughter Anat, the killers took them down to the nearby beach and shot Dani dead in front of his little girl. Anat’s head was then smashed against the rocks until she too lay lifeless.

Smadar and the couple’s two-year-old daughter Yael were hiding in a closet, where, for fear the terrorists were still in the house, Smadar sought to smother Yael’s cries. Yael died of suffocation as her mother tried to keep them safe from Kuntar.

On Thursday an article in the PA-controlled daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida praised Kuntar for slaughtering the Haran family, and called him an “authentic role model” for all Palestinian Arabs.

The article said Kuntar had created for himself a “name of pride” during the “hours of heroism in Nahariya.”

Furthermore, Kuntar “was and will continue to be a beacon of light for us and for the generations to come...”

“Every day that passes Samir's pride grows, and our pride in him grows greater and greater,” the paper said.

Ongoing incitement

Al-Hayat’s glorification of Kuntar closely mirrored the Voice of Palestine’s praise for the two terrorist gunmen who murdered Tali Hatuel and her four daughters in the Gaza Strip last Sunday.

The massacre of the Hatuel family - during which the terrorists themselves were eliminated by IDF troops - was labeled as an "act of heroic martyrdom."

PLO chief Yasser Arafat refused to condemn the attack, and instead instructed one of his officials to label Hatuel and her girls, all under age 12, as “terrorists.”

Releasing terrorists

After decades in an Israeli prison, Kuntar is again in the headlines as the centerpiece of another possible prisoner exchange between Israel and Hizballah.

In return for Kuntar and other terrorists, Israel would reportedly receive the bodies of three IDF soldiers killed in the 1982 Lebanon War, as well as information on missing IAF aviator Ron Arad.

Israel set free hundreds of “Palestinian” and other Arab terrorists last year in return for the bodies of three IDF soldiers abducted by Hizballah in 2000 and kidnapped businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum.

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