By Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, Palestinian Media Watch Bulletin, August
22, 2005.
The PA's Ministry of Culture released its "Book of the Month" today, a poetry
collection honoring suicide terrorist Hanadi Jaradat, who murdered 29 Israelis. It
was distributed as a special supplement in the daily Al-Ayyam.
Entitled "What Did Hanadi Say?" the collection includes a poem glorifying
Jaradat's act of suicide terror, calling it "the highest goal":
"O Hanadi! Shake the earth under the feet of the enemies! Blow it up!
Hanadi said: "It is the wedding of Hanadi the day when death as a Martyr for
Allah, becomes the highest goal."
The poem is dedicated to Jaradat, called "the Rose of Palestine," who murdered
29 Jews and Arabs in a suicide bombing in a Haifa restaurant in October 2003.
The poem criticizes the Arab nation for ignoring Jihad:
"Where is the [Arab] nation..? The armies hid, nothing left in the field ...
not the sound of Jihad, all of them, at the moment of decision, surrender, obey
the enemies..."
She complains:
"O Hanadi..! The flag of the nation is not flying in the fields of Jihad."
The poem ends as Hanadi takes the initiative:
"O Hanadi! Shake the earth under the feet of the enemies! Blow it up! It
is the wedding of Hanadi the day when death as a Martyr for Allah, becomes
the highest goal, that liberates my land."
["What Did Hanadi Say," PA Ministry of Culture Publication of the Month
Supplement, Al-Ayyam, August 22, 2005]
This glorification of a mass murderer was not a private enterprise, but was
published by the PA Ministry of Culture.
