Late last night a 40-year-old man entered the Chabad Lubavich world headquarters building on Eastern Parkway with a knife. He attacked a 22-year-old Israeli student in the head and was shot by police after refusing to put his weapon down. The attacker later died at a local hospital. In keeping with longstanding Palestinian policy, President Mahmoud Abbas ordered officials to begin sending payments to the family of the slain attacker.
President Abbas stressed that the location of the attack on Jews should in no way prejudice the payment policy against the martyr who dies as a result of the act, and that he will ensure that such an exception is specifically negated in the regulations governing those payments. "It would be a disservice to our brave martyrs and their families to exclude such deeds from eligibility simply because they take place overseas," he said.
Even before the release of the stabber's identity by the New York Police Department, Abbas instructed his financial officials to discover the relevant information regarding the man's family so that payment could be arranged as soon as possible. The fact that the stabber was not Palestinian, stressed Abbas, or even knew his victim was Israeli, should not be factor in his family's eligibility for a pension. "The fact that this brave man died because he wielded a knife and yelled, 'Kill the Jew!' is enough," he stated.
Observers initially thought the stabbing was directly germane to the ongoing protests and violence surrounding the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers across the US. However, no direct connection has yet been made, and video of the shooting in this case includes clear footage of the stabber refusing to put down his knife and getting shot as a result. Abbas welcomed the invocation of the Palestinian cause in the demonstrations, as some activists have done, and the way in which they obscure or ignore the cases of clear justification for certain such killings on the part of police. "We urge our supporters and spiritual brothers in urban America to adopt our practice of hailing every single person who dies at the hand of better-armed authorities as a martyr whose blood must be avenged, regardless of the circumstances of that death," he continued.
Palestinian officials refused to comment on whether they would also begin formal incitement to murder Jews beyond the Middle East, or whether only post facto rewarding of such acts would be instituted.