Skip to main content

Artist profiled in official PA daily painted terrorists because they were “figures who influenced his patriotic character”

Headline: “Muhammad Al-Deiri – a multi-talented artist”

“Artist Muhammad Al-Deiri from Gaza… skillfully began painting at the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000 (i.e., PA terror campaign 2000-2005) when he was 14 years old. His participation in the Intifada was expressed through graffiti paintings on the walls, which instilled optimism of victory in the battle of those carrying out the Intifada. After he joined the ranks of the [PA] National Security [Forces], he was chosen to represent his battalion by painting on the training sites.
Al-Deiri became known afterwards for his paintings of figures who influenced his patriotic character and social viewpoints, because he painted a large picture of deceased Martyr (Shahid) President Yasser Arafat, [Hamas founder] Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and [Islamic Jihad founder] Commander Fathi Shaqaqi along the western wall of Al-Azhar University [in Gaza].
Likewise, he painted on the western wall of the Al-Saraya Building (i.e., the main Hamas security compound in Gaza City) the pictures of the Fatah Central Committee Martyrs, [Fatah co-founder] Salah Khalaf and [Fatah co-founder] Khalil Al-Wazir… and also painted deceased Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, deceased Venezuelan President [Hugo] Chavez, and the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.”


Visual:
In the article appear pictures of Al-Deiri’s graffiti paintings consisting of, from left to right, a group painting of Fatah co-founder Salah Khalaf, Yasser Arafat, and Fatah co-founder Khalil Al-Wazir Abu Jihad, and solo paintings of Fatah co-founder Khalil Al-Wazir Abu Jihad, poet Mahmoud Darwish, terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Ahmed Yassin - Founder and former head of the terrorist organization Hamas. The Hamas movement is responsible for numerous terror attacks and the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians.

Fathi Shaqaqi - Founder of Islamic Jihad that was responsible for more than 1,000 terror attacks, killing approximately 150 and wounding 950. He was killed by Israel in Malta in 1995.

Abu Iyad (Salah Khalaf) - Founder of Fatah and head of the terrorist organization Black September. Attacks he planned included the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics (Sept. 5, 1972) and the murder of two American diplomats in Sudan (March 1, 1973).

Abu Jihad (Khalil Al-Wazir) - was a founder of Fatah and deputy to Yasser Arafat. He headed the PLO terror organization's military wing and planned many deadly Fatah terror attacks killing 125 Israelis. This included the most lethal in Israeli history, the hijacking of a bus and killing of 37 civilians, 12 of them children.

Saddam Hussein - former President of Iraq, who was convicted by an Iraqi court and executed in 2006 for ordering the Dujail massacre in Iraq in which 148 people were killed. In order to expedite his execution, it was decided not to prosecute him for other crimes he committed.

Dalal Mughrabi led the most lethal terror attack in Israel’s history, known as the Coastal Road massacre, in 1978, when she and other Fatah terrorists hijacked a bus on Israel's Coastal Highway, killing 37 civilians, 12 of them children, and wounding over 70.

Mahmoud Darwish is considered the Palestinian national poet. He published over 30 volumes of poetry and 8 books of prose and has won numerous awards. He joined the Israeli Communist Party in 1961 and the terrorist organization PLO in 1973, becoming a member of the PLO Executive Committee in 1987. He left the PLO in 1993 because it signed the Oslo Accords with Israel.
Many in Israel see his poetry as inciting hate and violence. One poem he wrote in 1988 at the height of the Palestinian wave of violence and terror against Israel (the first Intifada, 1987-1993) calls to Israelis: “Take your portion of our blood - and be gone… Live wherever you like, but do not live among us… Die wherever you like, but do not die among us… Leave our country, our land, our sea, our wheat, our salt, our wounds, everything, and leave the memories of memory.”
He also wrote “Silence for the Sake of Gaza” in 1973, which many see as glorifying terror: “She wraps explosives around her waist and blows herself up. It is not a death, and not a suicide. It is Gaza's way of declaring she is worthy of life.”
His defenders have claimed that Israel misinterprets his poetry and that he sought reconciliation with Israel. One wrote in 2017: “Darwish arranged meetings between Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals, and published essays on their discussions. He was optimistic that, through mutual understanding, the two sides could eventually reconcile.” [https://www.bcalnoor.org/] (It should be noted that in the above item, the official PA daily places him in the same category as terrorists who murdered civilians and sought the destruction of Israel by displaying his picture with theirs.)

RelatedView all ❯