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.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
