Note that the PA official daily later published a retraction of this report. The retraction cited UNRWA’s denial of hosting a tournament in the name of the terrorist.
To see PMW’s bulletin with the PA paper’s retraction and UNRWA’s denial, click here.
An UNRWA educational program in Ramallah has honored the terrorist Abu Jihad with a football tournament in his name. The tournament was organized by the Fatah Students' Youth Movement at UNRWA's Women's Training Center and Faculty of Educational Sciences in Ramallah:
"The Student Union Council and the Shabiba [Fatah] Students' Movement at UNRWA's Faculty of Educational Sciences has launched a football tournament under the name, 'The Shahid (Martyr) Abu Jihad Tournament.'"
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 17, 2010]
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| Abu Jihad |
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| Remnant of bus hijacked by Mughrabi in operation planned by Abu Jihad |
Dedicating sports tournaments and summer camps for Palestinian youth to terrorists who have killed Israelis is Palestinian Authority policy. Palestinian Media Watch has regularly documented the PA's glorification of terrorists.
The fact that UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees) is hosting a tournament honoring a terrorist is not the first time that the UN has supported the PA's policy of honoring terrorists. In the past, the UN has supported summer camps named after terrorists, including a UNICEF-sponsored camp in 2003 named after "the Shahida (Martyr) Wafa Idris." For examples of camps named after terrorists, click here.
Abu Jihad was one of the founders of the Fatah Movement and the orchestrator of the organization's terror activities from the mid-1960s. Second in command to Yasser Arafat, he headed the military wing of the PLO and served as deputy supreme military commander of Fatah. Abu Jihad planned many of the major Fatah terror attacks, including the worst terror attack in Israel's history, in which 37 civilians were murdered in a bus hijacking led by Dalal Mughrabi in 1978. He also planned the hostage taking at the Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv in 1975 in which eight hostages and two Israeli soldiers were killed. Abu Jihad was killed in 1988 in an operation attributed to Israel.
To view PMW's case study about the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, From terrorist to hero, click here.
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| “UNRWA’s Ramallah Women’s Training Center and Educational Sciences Faculty” [http://www.rwtc.edu/arabic/] |
According to its web site, UNRWA's educational institution prides itself on being "the pioneering UNRWA institute that provides Palestinian refugee women with high quality vocational and technical education..."
The web site further state's that:
"The college has a board of trustees of seven members working with UNRWA. All hold high qualification and have long experience in the field of education."
[http://www.rwtc.edu/english/faculty.htm]
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