JERUSALEM – The summer vacation may be over but the after effects of summer camps geared at inciting Palestinian youth to violence are still being felt by Israelis who are coming to terms with six terror attacks that rocked the country over the weekend.
One of the Palestinian leadership’s methods of turning terrorists into role models is by naming summer camps after them. Israeli NGO Palestinian Media Watch reported on Monday that two more camps were named after terrorists who carried out attacks in the ongoing wave of violence.
In Jerusalem, a summer camp named “The Martyr Baha Alyan Pioneers” honored the 22-year-old terrorist behind the shooting and stabbing attack on a Jerusalem bus last October. Together with Bilal Ghanem, an operative for the Hamas terror group, the two murdered three Israelis, two of whom were in their 70s – including former principal and American citizen Richard Lakin – and wounded three others.
Alyan was shot and killed by an Israeli security guard, instantly transforming him into a “martyr.” Ghanem, who had previously served time in an Israeli jail, was given three consecutive life sentences.
The camp was organized by the PLO’s Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs in partnership with the Jerusalem Suburbs Education Directorate, an entity that falls under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education.
At the Alyan camp, 11 to 17-year-old campers were visited by PLO officials and members of the PA police force, among others.
In addition to the summer camp, the Palestinian Scout Association named a training course after Alyan. As Breitbart Jerusalem reported earlier this year, Alyan has also had several events held at Palestinian universities in his honor.
Meanwhile, 120 children in the Bethlehem area participated in the “Martyr Mamoun Al-Khatib Camp,” named after a 16-year-old terrorist who attempted a stabbing attack against an Israeli civilian late last year.
As with the Alyan camp, the Al-Khatib Camp was held under the auspices of the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports.
The council’s Deputy Secretary-General Najeh Al-Izza said at the camp’s opening event that his office was investing its resources in youth since they are “the foundation of the future and the hope of the present.”
Director of the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports Jibril Rajoub similarly named a sporting event after Muhammad Halabi, who attacked an Israeli family in Jerusalem with a knife, killing a man and injuring his wife and two-year-old child. Rajoub, who is a senior member of Fatah’s Central Committee, also serves as chairman of the Palestine Olympic Committee. Rajoub has condemned using sport as a peace-building tool, calling it a “crime against humanity.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party organized a summer camp named after terrorist Muhammad Al-Shubaki, who stabbed and wounded an Israel soldier in November 2015.
As part of the camp’s closing ceremony, Palestinian children performed a play depicting “Zionist jailers” executing “heroic prisoners.”
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