TEL AVIV – Israeli Arabs this weekend held a memorial ceremony led by major Arab political parties here mourning the death of one of the most infamous anti-Israel terrorists leaders.
Over one thousand Israeli Arabs congregated in Lod, a city near Tel Aviv in which Israel's international airport is located, to mourn George Habash, who was the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group. Habash was buried last week in Amman, Jordan after dying of a heart attack at the age of 81.
The choice of Lod as a place to mourn Habash may be particularly stinging to Israelis since the city was the site of one of the PFLP's deadliest terror attacks. In 1972, the PFLP gunned down 27 people at Israel's Lod airport. Habash was also born in Lod.
"Habash was buried in Amman but he must be buried in Lod. ... Habash's death was one of the biggest losses of the Palestinian people and Arab nation," said Jamal Zahalka, a leader of the Israeli Arab Balad party, which holds Knesset seats.
Zahalka, who also attended Habash's funeral in Jordan, was one of a handful of Israeli Arab leaders to lead the Lod memorial ceremony, which was replete with glowing eulogies of Habash and a march through the streets of Lod with participants brandishing Palestinian flags and some carrying placards reading, "Habash lives on."
Local and national representatives of the Israeli Arab Hadash political party were also present.
According to diplomatic sources speaking to WND, Balad contributed funds in a campaign that has plastered the city of Lod with pro-Habash posters.
Arabs make up about 20 percent of Israel's population. About one-fifth of Lod's population is Arab, according to Israeli demographic statistics.
Habash's PFLP gained notoriety in 1970 for hijacking four Western airliners over the U.S., Europe, the Far East and the Persian Gulf. The aircraft were blown up in the Middle East after passengers and crews disembarked. Also in 1970, the PFLP bombed a Swissair flight in midair heading for Israel, killing all 47 civilians on board.
The PFLP continues operating from Syria, Jordan and the West Bank. More recent attacks include scores of deadly shootings against Israelis, the 2001 assassination of Rechavam Zeevi, Israel's tourism minister, and suicide bombings on an Israeli highway and in Tel Aviv's well-known Karmel Market.
According to Israeli security officials, the PFLP is the Palestinian terror group most proficient in carrying out successful drive-by shooting attacks.
Habash also led the second-largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization; the largest faction was led by Yasser Arafat. Habash strongly opposed interim agreements with Israel and, throughout his life, advocated terror attacks as a means to destroy the Jewish state.
Israeli Arab political parties, including Balad, have been in hot water recently after a slew of security related criminal charges against top political figures.
Even though it controls Knesset seats, the Balad party refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The party's former head, Azmi Bishara, fled Israel in April amid accusations he worked as a Hezbollah agent during the 2006 war with Lebanon, passing information to the terror group about the location of strategic sites in Israel in exchange for about $350,000. He was charged with working for enemy countries, supporting terrorism and meeting with foreign enemy agents. Bishara has denied the charges, claiming political persecution.
Niad Malhem, another member of the Balad party, was arrested in December on suspicion he committed serious security-related offenses. Due to a gag order on the case, Israeli reporters were not briefed about the specifics of the accusations, but security sources speaking to WND said Malhem is accused of spying for Hezbollah.
A poll in April 2007 by the University of Haifa showed half of Israeli Arabs believe Hezbollah's 2006 kidnapping of two Israeli troops was justified. The same poll showed more than a quarter of Israel's Arab citizens believe the Holocaust never happened, and 89 percent said they viewed Israel's bombing of Lebanon last summer as a war crime, while only 44 percent said they saw Hezbollah's rocket attacks against Israeli cities as a crime.
Multiple reports in the Israeli media during the 2006 war found Hezbollah flags flying from some Israeli-Arab villages in the north of the country, even when the areas were smashed by Hezbollah rockets.
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