Lebanese leader praises suicide bomber

A member of Lebanon's parliament praised a Palestinian mother's suicide bomb attack, calling the "fall of one Jew" a "great accomplishment" and urging lawmakers to support similar efforts against the "Jewification" of Palestine.

Walid Jumblatt, chairman of the Druze Socialist Progressive Party, said the Jan. 14 attack by Reem Al-Riyashi joined her with "the columns of the brave jihad warriors and broke the atrocious and troublesome Arab silence, the helplessness and the retreat that precede failure and disintegration."

The political leader's comments were translated by the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI.

"She offered hope in a sea of complacency, indecisiveness, and fear," Jumblatt said of the suicide bomber. "It is a new Intifada. It is the Intifada of the revolutionary Palestinian woman and of the land, opposing the 'Jewification' [of Palestine], the Jewish reality and the Arab regimes. Did it come out of despair?"

The lawmaker answered his own question: "No, and again no," he said. "It is an act of belief, and it is the correct path, because the fall of one Jew, whether soldier or civilian, is a great accomplishment in times of decline, subservience, and submissiveness, as a way to undermine the plan to 'Jewify' all of Palestine.

Jumblatt chided Lebanese intellectuals who seek peaceful negotiation with Israel.

"They play word games [and differentiate] between Jew and Israeli, between Right and Left and between doves and hawks," he said. "Some of them may have forgotten, or pretend that they have forgotten, that basically Israel was the product of the Zionist Left starting with Weizmann, Ben-Gurion and Peres through Yossi Beilin.

"Have they forgotten that the Labor Party went to war in 1967 and since then began to settle Jews in the West Bank?" he continued. "Even the separation wall today is the brainchild of the Labor Party during Barak's time ... . And there are those who made Rabin into a hero because of an obscure promise that we are still bragging about [concerning Israel's willingness to withdraw from the Golan Heights]. Wasn't he the one who instated [the practice of] breaking the bones of Palestinian detainees ... ?

Jumblatt urged the parliament to support the militant efforts of people such as the suicide bomber.

"Reem Al-Riyashi is the last roadblock," he said. "What is it that she and other [women] are seeking or demanding? A few weapons, explosives, or anti-tank missiles, [and to be able to pass] through Jordan, Rafiah, Lebanon, Syria, or any other possible doorway in order to prevent the 'Jewification' plan, or at least to delay it, while the [weapon] depots of the Arab armies are full to the brim ... ."

The Palestinian women, who left behind two toddlers, hid a bomb underneath her robe at a Gaza border crossing, killing four Israelis.

"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," al-Riyashi said in a farewell video. "God gave me two children and I loved them so much. Only God knew how much I loved them."