Official Egyptian paper:Killing kids OK
Says Palestinian suicide attacks should be blamed on Israelis
Posted: February 5, 2004
5:00 p.m. Eastern
2004 WorldNetDaily.com
An editorial in an Egyptian government newspaper asserted suicide bombings are
legitimate even if children are killed.
The daily Al-Masaa praised suicide operations, calling on Palestinian
organizations to not publish the names of the bombers so that their families'
houses would not be demolished, according to a translation provided by the
Washington, D.C.-based monitor Middle East Media Research Institute.
The editorial came amid debate in the Arab media over the dispatching of a
mother by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Reem Al-Riyashi, who left
behind two toddlers, hid a bomb underneath her robe at a Gaza border crossing,
killing four Israelis.
In a farewell video, Riyashi said, "It was always my wish to turn my body into
deadly shrapnel against the Zionists and to knock on the doors of heaven with
the skulls of Zionists."
The Egyptian daily said, "We have no argument regarding the question of the
legitimacy of these operations, because they are considered a powerful weapon
used by the Palestinians against an enemy with no morality or religion, [an
enemy] who has deadly weapons prohibited by international law, that is not
deterred from using them against the defenseless Palestinian people."
The paper asserted even if civilians or children are killed in the suicide
operation, "the blame does not fall upon the Palestinians, but on those who
forced them to turn to this modus operandi."
"Ultimately, we should bless every Palestinian man or woman who goes calmly to
carry out a martyrdom operation, in order to receive a reward in the Hereafter,
sacrificing her life for her religion and her homeland and knowing that she
will never return from this operation," Al Masaa said.
The paper said, however, it questions the Palestinian organizations' practice
of publishing the names of the people who carry out the attacks.
Publishing the names, Al Masaa said, "is a valuable gift that the Palestinian
resistance gives the Zionist entity, since as soon as it receives this gift,
the armies of the [Zionist] entity hasten to the home of the martyr's family,
wounded by the loss of its son, in order to multiply its pain by destroying its
home."