Al Hayat Al Jadida is an official daily newspaper of the Palestinian Authority. Here's a translation (with commentary) of an article that appeared in that paper earlier this week, on the anniversary of the death of that great palestinian heroine, Dalal Mughrabi. (You may remember that name -- there was quite a fuss last summer when it was learned that USAID funds were being used to renovate a girls' school named in her honor.)
(Courtesy of IMRA, translated by Palestinian Media Watch)
On the morning of March 11, 1978, a woman Palestinian fighter [Fedayeen], Dalal Mughrabi, created a legend that would be taught for many years, when she and her Fedayeen unit infiltrated the Palestinian coastal plain near Tel Aviv [Edit: -the Palestinians routinely define all of Israel as "occupied Palestine"] causing tens of killed and injured, after taking Israeli passengers as hostages on a bus along the coastal highway. She and her unit opened fire at the military vehicles in the vicinity, resulting in hundreds of injuries among the occupying soldiers, especially because this highway is frequently used by military vehicles transporting soldiers between the Zionist colonies in the suburbs and Tel Aviv. [Edit: Palestinians define all of Israel's cities as illegal "colonies"]
The army, headed by [Ehud] Barak, and with the assistance of tanks and helicopters, pursued the bus until it was finally stopped near the colony of Herzliya. A real battle took place between Dalal and her unit and the occupation forces . Journalists' cameras captured the blind hatred that overcame Barak and his soldiers during the operation.
Twenty-five years after this heroine's death as a Shahida [Dying for Allah], many Palestinian women are following in her footsteps every day. Examples include Wafa Idris, [First woman suicide bomber] and Ayyat al-Akhras, [second woman suicide bomber] who performed acts of Shahada- Seeking during the blessed al-Aksa Intifada to protect the homeland. The Shahida Dalal Mughrabi shall remain one of the symbols of the Palestinian national struggle. [Al Hayat Al Jadida March 11, 2003]
Not to belabor the point, but this paper, which reflects official, current palestinian policy, continues to this day to refer to "the Palestinian coastal plain near Tel Aviv," to style Israeli cities in that region "Zionist colonies," and to glorify and praise the slaughter of innocent civilians (including an American photograher). There are those of us who, for the sake of accuracy, prefer to refer to Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip as "disputed territories" rather than "occupied territories." But the sad fact is that every single square inch of Israel is "disputed," as far as the palestinians are concerned. That didn't change at Oslo and it hasn't changed since.
