A school in the West Bank this week reportedly named a soccer tournament after a Palestinian terrorist. The school, located in Tulkarem, named its tournament after Shahid Ziyad Da’as, who in 2002 killed six and wounded 30 with an M-16 in an attack at a bat mitzvah in Hadera. The news appeared in the Palestinian Authority-run paper Al Hayat Al Jadida, according to Palestinian News Watch, an 11-year-old newsletter run out of Jerusalem. The newsletter’s director, Itamar Marcus, says that this is just the latest in a long list of examples of Palestinians honoring terrorists through sports and other recreational activities. In 2003 year, a school named a volleyball tournament after Abd Baset Udah, a 14-year-old suicide bomber for whom a summer camp was also named, Marcus told JTA. Another volleyball tournament earlier this year was named after Fatimah al Najar, a 57-year-old female suicide bomber. And a soccer tournament was named after Saddam Hussein shortly after the ex-dictator’s execution last winter.
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