PA op-ed praises “Martyr” Archbishop who smuggled weapons to terrorists
Excerpt of an op-ed by Yahya Rabah, regular columnist for the official PA daily
Headline: “Torches on the Path… the fifth volume”
“The most beautiful and meaningful gift… I received [it several] weeks ago from my dear friend [PA Security Force] Maj. Gen. Arabi Muhammad Kalloub, who is standing firm in the Gaza Strip… and it is the fifth volume of the national encyclopedia Torches on the Path, which includes [information about] 150 Martyrs (Shahids) sown in the Palestinian memory…
… Arabi Kalloub [shined] the spotlights on several role models from among the Martyrs whom we have mentioned, and their Martyrdom-death (Shahada) was filled with great meanings, like Martyr Archbishop Hilarion Capucci (i.e., weapons smuggler, died aged 94, 40 years after Israel released him from prison; see note below –Ed.) who was born in Syrian Aleppo in 1922 and became the Greek Catholic [Arch]bishop of Jerusalem in 1965. He was a friend of known Fatah leader Abu Jihad (i.e., terrorist, responsible for murder of 125), and Israel imprisoned him and sentenced him to 12 years in prison in 1974, of which he served 4 years; he died in Rome in 2017.”
Hilarion Capucci – former Greek Catholic Archbishop of Jerusalem who exploited his status as a religious leader to smuggle weapons to Palestinian terrorists. He was arrested in 1974 and sentenced to 12 years in prison. He was released in 1977 due to the Vatican’s intervention. In October 2013, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas awarded him the Star of Jerusalem Medal. Capucci died on Jan. 1, 2017.
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 also planned many deadly Fatah terror attacks in the 1960’s - 1980’s. These attacks, in which a total of 125 Israelis were murdered, included the Coastal Road attack that (until Oct. 7, 2023) was the most lethal in Israeli history - the hijacking of a bus and murder of 37 civilians, 12 of them children.