Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh was among several Palestinian Authority leaders who praised the terrorists who murdered an Israeli woman, Lucy Dee, and two of her daughters, Maia and Rina, last month.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, center, arrives to attend a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels on Monday, Jan. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
As Breitbart News reported, Lucy Dee (48) and Maia (20) and Rina (15) were traveling on a road to Tiberias, behind a separate car driven by their father, when they were ambushed and attacked by Palestinian gunmen.
Maia and Rina died on the scene, while Lucy died several days later (donating her organs to save five lives). Israel later located and killed the terrorists in a raid on the city of Jenin, in northern Samaria (West Bank).
According to Palestinian Media Watch, a non-governmental organization that monitors what Palestinian leaders and official media outlets say, Prime Minister Shtayyeh and others praised the terrorists as “martyrs” (original emphasis):
PA Chairman Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina “condemned the ongoing invasions of the cities and the daily crimes of murdering our people, the latest of which was the ascent [to Heaven] of 3 Martyrs [Hassan Qatanani, Moaz Al-Masri, and Ibrahim Jaber] in the old city of Nablus.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 5, 2023]
PA Prime Minister Shtayyeh not only “condemned the Israeli act of aggression due to which 3 Martyrs ascended to Heaven” [WAFA, official PA news agency, May 4, 2023] and “called on the European Union to condemn the occupation’s crimes.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 5, 2023] He even shared a post by the PA Government’s Spokesman Ibrahim Melhem with praise and pictures of the murderers and their helper[.]
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Echoing the PA top, Palestinian National Council (i.e., the legislative body of the PLO) Chairman Rawhi Fattouh also “condemned” Israel’s killing of the terrorists. [WAFA, official PA news agency, May 4, 2023]
The Taylor Force Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2018, prohibits U.S. taxpayer dollars from being used to support the Palestinian Authority as long as it pays stipends to terrorists and their families.
The the Palestinian Authority government of “moderate” President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to abandon the policy (known as “pay for slay” by critics), but the Biden administration has sought ways to fund it indirectly.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.