[warning: shoddy auto-translation] 

Ma’an – confirmed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the deterioration of the health status of its Secretary-General Ahmed Saadat, the leader and its entry in the recurrent episodes of coma after losing a large part of its weight.

The Front said in a statement arrived “together” a copy of that response will be harsh loaded with the Netanyahu government full responsibility for the lives of its Secretary General.

Front and warned the Israeli occupation authorities against the consequences of their practices “repressive and terrorist” against the Palestinian prisoners and deprive them of basic human rights by Santha and confirmed by the Fourth Geneva Convention, which hit the wall by the occupation government.

Interestingly enough, Maan News (English) has no mention of this development, although in a report yesterday, his health was described as ”very worrying.”

Despite the fact that going on a hunger strike is not so good for one’s health, Firas Press (Arabic) prefers to blame Sadaat’s condition on Zionist Death Snakes.^TM

The Director of the Abu Jihad for the Prisoners Affairs at the University of Jerusalem, Fahed Abu Haj that the management of the interest of the occupation prisons planned to kill the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ahmed Saadat, who is being held in solitary solitary confinement since his arrest in 2006, through several means, most recently put snakes in his cell.

Hajj said in a press statement: ‘The occupation authorities put snakes inside the cell, Saadat unilateral, as well as about his subject to solitary confinement and restrictions upon the deprivation of basic human rights, and barred him from visiting’.

He pointed out that the Prison Service gave up their attempts to kill him by following the previous procedures, placing his cell had snakes, pointing out that when he discovered the snake is the interest of the prison to kill her, but he was surprised the next morning the presence of other cell had a snake.

Abu Al Haj promised that leaving no room for doubt that the interest of his prison intends to kill Saadat.

Either way, here’s hoping Ahmed Saadat is soon Ahmed the dead terrorist.

Ynet has more:

Cleared for Publication: Shin Bet, IDF and police have arrested two Palestinians, both residents of the village of Awarta, in connection to the Fogel family massacre in Itamar in March.

The first suspect is Hakim Mazen Awad, 18, a high school student whose father was active in the Popular Front terror organization. Awad has a prison record. His uncle, who was killed in clashes with IDF forces in 2003, was involved in a June 2002 terror attack in Itamar, which left five dead.

The second suspect, Amjad Mahmad Awad, 19, also a student, is affiliated with the Popular Front.

The two suspects confessed to their involvement in the murders, and said that they sought to carry out a terror attack in order to kill Israelis. They expressed no regret over the murders.

The Shin Bet arrested the two subsequent to a strenuous investigation, which included the interrogation of multiple persons of interest in the case.

On April 5 and April 10, IDF forces arrested Amjad and Hakim. The investigation into the attack revealed that the two decided to carry out a terror attack and attempted to acquire weapons three days before the March 11 attack.

In order to obtain the weapons they turned to a Popular Front militant in their village, but he refused to acquiesce to their request. And yet, at midday on Friday March 11, they decided that they would go to Itamar that night, armed with knives and carry out the attack.
At approximately 9:00 pm the two cut the settlement fence and entered its ground, masked. At first, they entered a neighboring house, found it empty, and stole an M-16 rifle, clips and a Kevlar vest. From there they moved onto the Fogel home.

Before entering the house the murderers noticed that there were children in the home. Undeterred, they still chose to proceed, killing two of the children immediately after breaking in. Parents Ehud and Ruth were murdered next. According to the investigation’s report, the two struggled with their attackers before succumbing to multiple shotgun wounds.

Before fleeing the scene, the two stole an additional gun from the Fogel home. When they had already left the house and saw a patrol car outside, they feared they would be captured. At that point, Amjad insisted on going back into the house and searching for additional weapons. Unfortunately, this was when the Fogel’s baby girl started crying. Fearing it would attract attention, the two murdered her, as well.

As for the two surviving children, the murderers said they hadn’t noticed them. Had they found the two, both said, they would not have hesitated to kill them, as well.

The heinous deed done, the two, who are not related, returned to their village on foot and appealed to Hakim’s uncle, Salah Awad, also a Popular Front militant, for assistance, giving him a detailed report of the attack they had carried out.

Salah Awad helped them conceal their weapons and bloodstained clothes, and later, he transferred the stolen weapons to a Ramallah resident, for hiding. The latter was arrested after the weapons were discovered in his possession.

Israeli security forces also arrested five of the two’s family members and friends in connection to the case.

The Shin Bet noted that even though the murderers are affiliated with the Peoples Front, it appears that they acted of their own accord and were not following orders. The issue is still under investigation.

A senior Shin Bet official said that the massacre had the characteristics of a “lone-terrorist” attack and even though it was carried out by two people, it was difficult to receive any information in advance which could have prevented the attack.

A senior Shin Bet official said that the massacre had the characteristics of a ‘lone terrorist’ attack and even though it was carried out by two people, obtaining intelligence to thwart such attacks in extremely difficult.

Sources familiar with the investigation said the two offered a dispassionate account of the attack, and “a chilling reenactment.” Shin Bet officers described it as one of the most “shocking, cold, remorseless and detailed description,” they had ever come across.

Amjad noted that he went to Itamar to “die a martyr’s death”, which strengthened his willingness to carry out an act of terrorism. During their interrogation the two suspects made no distinction between the murder of the parents and the children, describing it simply as an act against five Jewish Israelis.

The village of Awarta, with 8,000 residents is known as a breeding ground for terror and has quite a few hostile elements. Nevertheless, following the massacre and the series of arrests carried out by the defense establishment, the residents renounced the massacre and even attempted to point the blame away from the village.

The Shin Bet said that in spite of the time that passed between the murder and the case’s resolution, it was a major achievement.

Following today’s discoveries, Ruth Fogel’s brother, Yochai Ben Yishai told Ynet: “We are very proud of the State and the security services. But on a personal level, there is no consolation, the pain remains sharp.”

Yishai added that “the capture of he murderers gives us a sense of satisfaction on a national level but we must get to a point where these people are deterred before they take action and not just apprehended after the murder.”

I can hardly comprehend the sheer evil of these people. I say hardly, because we have unfortunately become accustomed to such depraved acts. In fact, less than a month ago we had a reminder -  the 10th-year anniversary of the murder of baby Shalhevet Pass, shot in the head by a palestinian sniper.

Update: From the above report, I see no evidence of what WorldNetDaily’s Aaron Klein claimed regarding PA involvement.

Update: Speaking of the PA..(hat tip: Blazing Cat Fur)

Popular as in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Israel’s Supreme Court says Shawan Jabarin leads a double life, as a human rights activist who also has a secret association with a terrorist organization. Human Rights Watch says he does invaluable work for peace, but its founding chairman and others consider Jabarin’s appointment shocking.

A Palestinian whom Israel’s Supreme Court has described as a “Jekyll and Hyde” of international terrorism has been appointed by Human Rights Watch (HRW) to its advisory board that oversees the sensitive reporting on Arab-Israeli affairs.

It’s a selection that has angered leading figures within HRW. Robert Bernstein, the founding chairman and now chairman emeritus, told The Daily Beast: “I am of course shocked but even more saddened that an organization dedicated to the rule of law seems to be deliberately undermining it.”

Stuart Robinowitz, a retired partner and of counsel to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP who has led three human rights fact-finding missions for HRW and the American Bar Association, said he is distressed that the appointment seems to have been made without disclosure of all the facts by two HRW executives, Middle East and North African director for HRW, Sarah Leah Whiston, and the executive director, Ken Roth.

The man at the center of the dispute, Shawan Jabarin, runs the human rights organization Al Haq in Ramallah on the occupied West Bank. In 1985 he belonged to a Birzeit University student group associated with the PFLP, indicted as a terror group, by 30 countries including the U.S., the European Union, and Canada. He was convicted of recruiting members for terrorist training outside Israel and served nine months of a 24-month jail sentence.

(The PFLP became notorious in the sixties and seventies for aircraft hijackings. More recently, in 2001 it assassinated the Israeli Minister for Tourism Rehavam Zeevi and has carried out a series of suicide killings: three Israeli civilians died in a bomb of blast at pizzeria in Karnei Shomron, on the West Bank, four in a bombing of the bus station at Geha Junction in Petah Tikva, and three in a bombing in the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv).

After he had served his time in jail, Jabarin was engaged as a field worker by Al Haq. He rose to become Director General in 2006 and has been nominated for several international awards but Israel in 1999 banned him from international travel. Jordan, also, has refused him entry on grounds of security. On Al Haq website Jabarin said he had lost track of the number of times he’d been arrested and detained. He estimated that he’d spent a cumulative eight years in administrative detention and claimed to have been beaten on numerous occasions.

In its 2007 judgment, the Supreme Court found that alongside activity in Al Haq, Jabarin was also a senior figure in the Popular Front terrorist organization: “This petitioner is apparently active as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In part of his activities, he is the director of a human rights organization, and in another part he is an activist in a terrorist organization which does not shy away from acts of murder and attempted murder which have nothing to do with rights, and on the contrary deny the most basic of all human rights, the most fundamental of fundamental right, without which there are no other rights—the right to life.”

Jabarin petitioned the court again in 2008. The court said it could understand the frustration of Jabarin’s lawyers in not being able to see the intelligence against him, but explained that the judges’ own examination of the classified material had led them to two conclusions: “First, that it is reliable information according to which the petitioner is among the senior activists of the Popular Front terrorist organization; second, the divulging of this material to the petitioner involves the exposure of important sources of information, and thus certain harm to national security.”

The Court examined the case a third time in March 2009. It reported that it had twice tried to find “a creative solution” that gave Jabarin some limited freedom of movement but concluded: “We found that the material pointing to the petitioner’s involvement in the activity of terrorist entities is concrete and reliable material. We also found that additional negative material concerning the petitioner has been added even after his previous petition was rejected.”

The judgment emphasized that the ban was not “punishment” for forbidden activity but “due to relevant security considerations.”

Calls over several days to Whiston were not returned. In a telephone conversation, Roth at first said it was “not true” that Jabarin had been a member of PFLP, then added: “And if he had been, it’s ancient history.” He would not discuss the Supreme Court judgments. In an email, Roth defended the appointment saying Jabarin had had no association with the PFLP or any other political organization since joining the staff of Al Haq in 1987. “The full HRW board noted his long and distinguished service with al Haq for two decades, the international awards he has received and his active assistance to HRW on, among other things, our seminal report attacking Palestinian suicide bombing of civilians.”

Robinowitz, HRW’s former fact-finding leader, said he was confounded that both Roth and Whiston disregarded the judgments of Israel’s Supreme Court and failed to tell the HRW Board of those findings.“Whitson in her written presentation stated that Jabarin had had no association since PFLP since 1987, thereby ignoring actions against him by Israel and Jordan security authorities in 2005 and 2006, and by the Israeli Supreme Court in 2007, 2008, and 2009.”

This is not the first time Jabarin’s fitness for work with HRW has been challenged. In March 2009 HRW issued a press release complaining of the travel ban on Jabarin again without disclosing the judgments of the Supreme Court. This provoked the Vice Chair of HRW, the celebrated film producer Sid Sheinberg (he discovered Stephen Spielberg), to protest the omissions. In a March 17, 2009, email to Roth, Whiston and Jane Olson. Sheinberg wrote that the press release was “misleading by important omission and therefore radically inaccurate.”

James Hoge, the former editor of Foreign Affairs who has only recently assumed the chairmanship of HRW, said: “I am told that Mr. Jabarin has done a good job in recent years promoting human rights in the West Bank. Nobody can give an explanation of why the Israeli high court refused to lift his travel ban three times. We are not alone in thinking he is a good human rights official. Other organizations think highly of him.”

An independent view of the controversy was afforded by Benjamin Pogrund, a Jerusalem journalist and author who has for years worked for peace. He commented that a previous connection with the PFLP was not necessarily damning. “A Palestinian colleague with whom I have cooperated in a lot of dialogue activity was a member and was jailed for it years ago. However, he is now a leading worker on the West Bank for peaceful co-existence. Pogrund said the repeated findings of the Supreme Court were another matter. “Even allowing for the court accepting secret information—which of course is not unique to Israel and is part of the dilemma faced by the West in balancing human rights with fighting terror—this must be treated seriously. The court is independent and much as I dislike its reliance on secret information I acknowledge its integrity and intelligence. So I feel that HRW needs to be ultra-careful and ultra-cautious here.”

NGO Monitor has more.

It seems to me that the only board Jabarin should have been elected to is the waterboard.

As part of their PR offensive, the palestinians and their supporters claim that the Bilin riots are “peaceful” protests organized to show opposition to the security fence “land grab.”  This, despite the preponderance of photos showing rocks being thrown and – even worse – molotov cocktails (a fact that these pro-palestinians have difficulty in acknowledging despite the evidence).

But now we have evidence – in the form of a photo taken by one of the “activists” themselves – that they are not just opposing Israel’s security fence, but rather Israel’s very existence (while supporting terrorism).

The red flag being held by the woman “activist” is that of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Here’s more on what they represent*:

Founded by George Habash after the occupation of the West Bank by Israel in 1967, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was formed as a resistance movement.
Combining Arab nationalism with Marxist Leninist ideology, the PFLP sees the destruction of Israel as integral to its struggle to remove Western influence from the Middle East.

During the 1970s the group fostered links with militant groups across the world, including the German Baader Meinhof organisation and Japan’s Red Army.

Working with other groups, the PFLP pioneered aircraft hijackings as a high-profile means of drawing attention to their movement, most notably with the capture of an Air France plane en route from Paris to Athens in 1976.

The plane was flown to Entebbe in Uganda where, after a stand-off, Israel launched a dramatic commando raid to rescue nearly 100 hostages.

The PFLP learned that spectacular attacks brought it publicity

During the 1970s, the PFLP was the second largest faction in the PLO, but pursued a markedly different strategy to Yasser Arafat’s dominant Fatah organisation.

While Fatah attempted to build support for the Palestinian cause from Arab countries, the PFLP became disillusioned with what it saw as inertia among Middle Eastern leaders. Instead the PFLP enlisted backing from Russia and China.

After 1978 the group switched the focus of its operations to attacks on Israeli and moderate Arab targets.

Decline

But the decline and collapse of the Soviet Union during the late 1980s undermined the PFLP, and the group lost ground to the radical Islamic Hamas movement.

PFLP HISTORY
1967: Founded in the West Bank
1968: Hijacks Israeli plane in first major operation
1972: Involved in Tel Aviv airport massacre
1976: Participates in Air France hijacking
1978: Targets Israel and moderate Arabs
1993: Opposes Oslo peace accord

Attempting to bolster its position after the supposed 1993 PLO-Israeli peace accord the PFLP added its weight to a disparate group of Palestinian organisations opposed to the deal.

It boycotted Palestinian elections in 1996, but three years later, the PFLP accepted the formation of the Palestine Authority and sought to join Yasser Arafat’s administration.

The succession of Abu Ali Mustafa, who replaced an ailing George Habash in 2000, was seen by many in Israel as heralding a return to the group’s radical policies of 1960s, 70s and 80s.

But Mustafa was soon assassinated by Israeli forces in August 2001 – a sign, said some analysts, of how Israel saw the PFLP as a continuing force.

The PFLP has been losing support to Islamist movements
Indeed the group struck back, shooting Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, leader of a right-wing party, and claiming it as revenge for Mustafa’s death.

Israel alleges that Ahmed Saadat, the current leader of the PFLP, ordered Zeevi’s assassination.

Mr Saadat was imprisoned by the Palestinian authorities but later seized by Israeli forces and taken to Israel.

Founder George Habash died in January 2008. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described him as a “historic leader” and announced three days of national mourning.

Then there’s the yellow Fatah flag, which I have dealt with in the past here.

So you see, despite the lies being disseminated by the palestinians and their supporters, the pictures they themselves took tell a different story.

* I purposely cited the BBC, since they can hardly be accused of being spokespeople for the IDF, which the pro palestinian propagandists are claiming cannot be trusted. While I disagree with this assessment, I nevertheless utilized the BBC report so they cannot use the oft used “IDF lies” retort.

The George Hamilton wannabe on the left is Ahmed Saadat, Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who allegedly organized the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi.

The smiling shrimp in the middle is Marwan Barghouti, leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Tanzim, who was convicted of five counts of murder and sentenced to five life sentences and forty years imprisonment.

The boofhead on the right is Samir Kuntar, a Palestine Liberation Front terrorist who has been in prison for almost 30 years after murdering a 28 year-old man, his four year-old daughter, and two Israeli policemen. (You can read more about him here).

They look like they’ve been subjected to horrendous conditions, don’t they? Especially Kuntar, who’s idea of a hunger strike seems to be not eating the second steak (although when comparing Barghouti’s head size to Kuntar’s, there could be reason to believe that the former was subjected to some kind of Zionist head-shrinking^TM).

So the next time you hear of the supposed ill-treatment of palestinian prisoners, recall this picture and call bullsh*t.

Update: Did I mention that Kuntar got married, received conjugal visits from his wife, and earned a college degree all while in prison?

So it’s fitting that his birth would be commemorated by other terrorists.

Marking the 80th anniversary of the birth of revolutionary leader Che Guevara, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Jabalya, in northern Gaza, organized a day of free medical services on Friday, June 13, 2008.

The day included medical checkups, including pediatric, cardiopulmonary, and dermatological screenings. Doctors provided prenatal care for pregnant women, and pharmacists provided medicines.

Particularly, hundreds of women and children participated in the program, in which over 750 illnesses were diagnosed, and the Union of Health Work Committees provided free treatment. In addition, 700 children received distributions of packaged milk, and medicines for diabetes, high blood pressure and other serious illnesses were distributed.

Participants pointed to this as an example of working for and serving the people, a revolutionary duty exemplified by Che Guevara and a fitting tribute to his birthday.

Meanwhile, notice the graphic used in the PFLP article, which combines Che Guevara – the archetypal symbol of terror chic – with the keffiyeh, the latest symbol of terror chic.