Arab reactions to terror attack on 15-16 year olds

All of the victims of the massacre were 15 or 16 years old. (UPDATE: This was a mistake - but four of them were.)

Arab reaction is predictable.

The IMEMC "news" called the victims "settlers" and said that the attack occurred in "East Jerusalem" (it happened to be in the western part of the town.)

Ramattan News (Arabic) calls the students "soldiers."

Mahmoud Abbas, of course, refused to condemn the attack. Instead he said "We condemn all attacks against civilians, be they Palestinian or Israeli," which is not a condemnation at all. After all, Arabs famously redefine words for their convenience so for all we know Abbas doesn't consider this an "attack" or he doesn't consider the victims "civilians" and any way you look at it he is saying that he believes that Israeli attacks on terrorists where civilians die is equivalent to attacks directed at civilians - a most immoral equivalence. (Saeb Erekat then claimed that Abbas did condemn the attack, but he seems to lie more than he tells the truth.)

Hamas "mainstream":

"This heroic attack in Jerusalem is a normal response to the crimes of the occupier and its murder of civilians," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.

Hamas "military wing":

In a statement sent to Ma'an they said "the operation is a natural reaction to the immensity of the barbaric Zionist Nazi crimes which have targeted women, children, mosques and houses. It's also a reaction to the Zionist enemy's holocaust in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank."

"The blessed attack will not be the last response to the massacres by the occupation," the statement added.

Islamic Jihad:

"It's the responsibility of those who killed 130 Palestinians in Gaza," said Abu Ahmad, an Islamic Jihad spokesman. "We congratulate those responsible for this heroic operation."

Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades:

A spokesman for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Palestine to the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Blessed martyrdom operation in occupied Jerusalem, which was a natural response to the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.

He said in a press statement sent to Ma'an (Arabic): "The operation came in the context of the natural response of the resistance to this occupation barbaric aggression and the unjust siege, in response to the Arab and international silence toward the suspicious usurper and occupier, in response to the crimes of the Zionist barbaric bombardment against our towns and villages and our response to the isolation and assassination operations against our people .. also comes in response to the Jews' desecration of the holy, stressing that continued resistance until full liberation of the soil of Palestine and defeat the occupiers irreversibly. "

But I'm sure that they really want to live in peace, and this is only rhetoric, and only a tiny minority of Gazans think this way, as the EU and "human rights" groups like to pretend.