GOP Lawmaker Calls on Trump to Designate Top Palestinian Official as Terror Sponsor
A US congressman with a track record of countering terrorism sponsored by the Palestinian Authority (PA) has called on President Donald Trump to blacklist a leading PA official.New UNRWA head to 'Post': No glorifying terrorists in our schools
In a letter to Trump on Thursday, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) urged Trump to designate the PA’s Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and its director, Qadri Abu Bakr, as sponsors of terror because of their direct involvement in providing monthly payments to terrorists and their families.
Lamborn was a principal backer of the 2018 Taylor Force Act, which conditions US aid to the PA on a verifiable abandonment its “pay‐for‐slay” policy. Two years after the legislation’s passage, the PA has not changed its policy.
“Unfortunately, the Palestinian leadership has continued to pay the terror rewards to terrorists, spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year to these monsters and their families,” Lamborn wrote in his letter to Trump. “Since the passing of the Taylor Force Act, and a similar law in Israel’s Knesset passed by my friends MKs Elazar Stern and Avi Dichter in July 2018, the Palestinian leadership has spent over 1.2 billion shekels, or $350 million, continuing to reward terror.”
“This vile practice must end, and your administration has the courage and moral clarity to do it,” Lamborn declared.
The phrase “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” may be a cliché, but in the case of Dalal Mughrabi, the difference could define the political landscape of the Middle East for decades to come.
In 1978, Mughrabi took part in the Coastal Road Massacre in which an Israeli bus was hijacked. Thirty-eight Israelis lost their lives in the attack, including 13 children. To Israelis, Mughrabi is a terrorist.
To the Palestinians, she is a national treasure. Children are taught to emulate her example. Five schools under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority are named for Mughrabi, as are town squares, summer camps and a women’s center.
She also pops up regularly in textbooks, where she is lauded as martyr and a hero.
Responsibility for reaching a definitive ruling on Mughrabi’s status – if such a thing is possible – may ultimately fall to Philippe Lazzarini, the incoming commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for the Palestinians.
His agency is committed to delivering international quality education to the more than 530,000 children educated within UNRWA’s 708 elementary and preparatory schools in the region. And as we are always told, the children are our future.
So, is Mughrabi a terrorist, or a martyr? What should the children be taught?
“Let’s be clear, there is no glorification of martyrs being taught in UNRWA schools,” Lazzarini told The Jerusalem Post via Zoom from Amman, Jordan. “There is none of that. No teacher is teaching that.
“We have extremely clear guidance regarding this because UNRWA is also in disagreement with this example [of Mughrabi]. I know this keeps popping up, but UNRWA has given clear instructions that this not be taught in the schools because it can be perceived as incitement, depending on how it is brought to the attention of the children.”
Talk about Chutzpah! @Twitter literally wrote to Minister @FarkashOrit, flat out saying that Iran leader @khamenei_ir calling Israel a ‘cancerous growth’ to be ‘uprooted and destroyed’ is mere “foreign policy saber rattling”?
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 31, 2020
Seriously @jack @smcs @Policy?
cc. @CotlerWunsh https://t.co/wq7ihnQ0g8
Oh, hi 👋 Iran state propaganda mouthpiece @PressTV. Thanks for the mention, though I’m pretty sure you misquoted me!
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 30, 2020
Here’s the full video 🎥 in case you missed it: https://t.co/gSxi3XyZ9P pic.twitter.com/XuglV639GZ


















