Israeli authorities should immediately release the French-Palestinian human rights worker Salah Hamouri from administrative detention and reverse the decision to revoke his residency status in his native Jerusalem, Human Rights Watch said today....The military courts based their decisions to detain him on secret information they allege points to Hamouri’s involvement in the activities of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Palestinian political movement with an armed wing.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese tweeted, "French-Palestinian Salah Hammouri is a human rights defender who has been persecuted for years. Israel may call him a 'terrorist' but the reality says otherwise. "
Let's look at reality.
HRW used to mention that the PFLP does not distinguish between its terror and "political" wings. Now it treats it as a political organization - even though nothing has changed.
The PFLP's own political platform explicitly supports terror: "It it is a natural right, and duty that the Palestinian people should defend itself, resist the occupation through various means of struggle, including armed struggle. ..[T]he form of armed struggle should be dealt with at each stage as a means to serve the inclusive political vision which is responsible for determining the function to be done at each stage of the struggle..."
And the PFLP still engages in terror. They were responsible for the murder of Rina Shnerb in 2019.
There is no doubt that Hamouri is a member of the PFLP, even though HRW says it is "alleged." Here is an article (archived) from the PFLP website that calls him a "comrade" and notes that he planned to assassinate the Chief Rabbi of Israel - and he justified it years afterwards.
Comrade Salah Hamouri, the former Palestinian prisoner freed as part of the prisoner exchange on December 18, 2011, said upon his release that “there is no option for the Palestinian people except resistance, because it is the only way for us to achieve our people’s rights, our freedom, and our self-determination.”He served nearly seven years in Israeli prison, charged with planning to assassinate Ovadia Yosef, the leader of the Shas party and the Chief Rabbi of Israel. “This man is and will remain a symbol of racism and fanaticism in Israel,” Hamouri said.
And when he says "resistance," he means murdering Jews.
A PFLP envoy to Cuba claimed the organization supports human rights - and one of those human rights is to murder Israeli Jews.
We reaffirm our commitment to our goals, principles and inalienable Palestinian national rights. Some of these have been recognized and approved by the norms, principles, conventions, international resolutions, international law and human rights. The first of these rights is the right of the Palestinian people to resist the occupation by all means and methods.
"All means and methods" means terrorism. And its main website is filled with praise and support for terror attacks.
The PFLP is a terrorist organization. It is designated as such by the US, EU, Canada and other countries. No major Western nation distinguishes between a "political party" and "armed wing." Neither does the PFLP itself. This was something apparently created by Human Rights Watch.
But "human rights" leaders are claiming that this convicted and admitted terrorist, who calls for violence, is a "human rights defender." Which indicates that they subscribe to the PFLP philosophy that the first and most important human right is to murder Jews.
(h/t GnasherJew)
