Last week, we discussed Hanan al-Hroub and her terrorist husband showing how the Palestinian Authority places far more importance on those who murder Jews than those who teach their own children.
But I would like to take a moment to examine exactly what it was her husband did who the Jews are he helped murder. This is how Omar al-Hroub is described according to his wife’s own bio:
Hanan Al-Hroub was born and raised in the alleys of Dheisheh refugee camp… She married a Palestinian freedom fighter, Omar Al-Hroub, who took part in one of the most daring guerrilla operations in the occupied territories, the Dabboya operation, in Hebron in May 1980. When the guerrillas were being pursued in the mountains they attacked a group of settlers going from the illegal Kiryat Arba settlement to the Dabboya building near the Ibrahimi Mosque. Thirteen settlers were killed, including their military leader in Hebron, and dozens were injured. Months after the operation, the guerrillas were captured; Omar was imprisoned and spent many years in Israeli prisons before being released. It was then that he met and married his life partner who became the best teacher in the world.
One of the reasons why people have had trouble reporting on this “most daring guerrilla operation” is because the details here are exaggerated in order to inflate the number of casualties. Omar al-Hroub didn’t help murder 13 Jews, in reality it was only 6. Here is how then Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Yehuda Blum described the attack in his letter dated 4 May 1980 to Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim (emphasis added):
I wish to draw your attention to a particularly brutal and vicious terrorist attack perpetrated by the criminal PLO in the city of Hebron on Friday, 2 May 1980, which resulted in the deaths of 6 persons and the injury of 16 others, among them women and children; 2 of the injured remain in critical condition.
This outrage was aimed against a group of Jewish worshippers, mostly students at religious seminaries who were returning from their Friday eve devotions at the Tomb of the Hebrew Patriarchs (Cave of Machpelah) in Hebron on foot, in accordance with Jewish religious law regarding Sabbath.
At about 19.30 hours (local time) while they were walking in a narrow alley, PLO terrorists attacked them from the roofs of two buildings, first by hailing them with bullets from the rear and then by hurling hand-grenades and explosives at them from several directions.
An Israel Defence Forces detachment, stationed nearby, repelled the assailants and found more ammunition and explosives in the area.
Within hours, Fatah, (the largest constituent group of the criminal PLO) headed by Yasser Arafat, took responsibility for the outrage in a statement broadcast on the terrorists’ radio in Lebanon. Yesterday, 3 May 1980, Arafat himself applauded the atrocity on arrival in Kuwait for a visit.
It will be recalled that in 1929 the existence of the millenia-old Jewish community of Hebron was brought temporarily to a close, as a result of a brutal pogrom staged by the forerunners of the terrorist PLO. At that time the community consisted mainly of pious scholars and students. More than 60 of them were brutally murdered and scores of others were wounded and tortured, their homes pillaged and their places of worship desecrated. That pogrom was instigated by the notorious Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who during the Second World War collaborated with the Nazis in the extermination of the Jews of Europe and was wanted thereafter as a war criminal to answer at Nuremberg for his crimes.
By perpetrating this latest outrage in Hebron, the terrorist PLO has proved once again that its criminals are the faithful disciples of their infamous mentor.
Once again the aim was mass murder for its own sake. Target was a peaceful group of worshippers returning from prayer, and the timing was the Sabbath eve.
Beyond indiscriminate murder, the object of this unconscionable atrocity was to inflame religious sentiments among local Arabs, and to foment incitement in an attempt to interfere with the ongoing peace process in the Middle East and in particular with the stepped-up negotiations on full autonomy for the Palestinian Arabs in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza district.
Cowardliness and callousness have characterized PLO terror since its inception and this criminal incident illustrates once again the true character of the PLO and its violent aims.
Not only was Hanan al-Hroub’s husband a terrorist who murdered Jews, he was a terrorist taking orders and money directly from Fatah, the PLO and Mahmoud Abbas’s predecessor, Yasser Arafat! What’s more, the world’s best teacher has her husband’s “operation” listed as a mark of pride. She doesn’t try to dress it up as a mistake of his past or pretend that he rejected violence while in prison as many other terrorists now claim. Her bio has a direct line between his murderous attack and her decision to marry him.
While finding the details of al-Hroub’s terror attack wasn’t on the first page of a Google search, it didn’t exactly require me to hire a private investigator either. But when reporting on Ms. al-Hroub, no one was able or, more likely, interested in digging any deeper than the shallow headline of “Palestinian teacher wins award for non-violence.” The Guardian happily reported that her terrorist husband and her two daughters were “were shot at by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint” but give absolutely no context and certainly don’t mention his terrorist past (if it is indeed only in his past). Sadly, that is was passes for journalism these days.
The mainstream media is not interested in muddying its perfect story by mentioning that its heroic teacher is in bed with a terrorist with blood on his hands. There isn’t much we can do to change this, but we can at least make sure the world does not forget the names of the Jews whose lives were taken by the beloved husband of “the world’s best teacher.”
The rest of the world may have forgotten them, but the Jewish people never will.
