A tale of 2 realities: Active terrorist shooter or innocent civilian?
The terror attack yesterday in Jerusalem’s Old City is a prime example of the alternative reality the Palestinian Authority attempts to create, with the goal of demonizing Israel and whitewashing terror.
In the real world, yesterday morning, an Arab resident of Jerusalem, who worked in a school funded by the Jerusalem municipality, decided to act upon incitement by the Palestinian Authority and his homicidal Hamas ideology to attack Israelis with an automatic weapon. The attacker murdered civilian Eliyahu Kay and injured four others. Israeli police officers shot the active terrorist shooter before he could murder any more innocent people.
In the world of the PA, a Palestinian was “shot by the occupation,” and “died as a Martyr,” after he allegedly – according to the “occupation police,” – killed a “policeman” or a “settler.”
Shortly after the attack, the first version of the PA’s narrative was released by the official PA news agency, WAFA:
“Israeli occupation forces today opened gunfire and killed a Palestinian man near the Chain Gate in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem, according to witnesses.
The man was identified as Fadi Abu Shukhedem, a 42-year-old teacher of Islamic Education who comes from Shuafat refugee camp in occupied Jerusalem.”
[Official PA news agency, WAFA, (In English), Nov. 21, 2021]
The article ended by saying “The Israeli Police claimed that Abu Shukhedem opened gunfire on police officers killing one of them and injuring another three.”
The PA further developed the narrative today in its official daily newspaper, claiming that “A civilian was shot by the occupation and died as a Martyr, a settler was killed and three others were wounded in Jerusalem.”
“Fadi Abu Shkhaydam a 42-year-old civilian from the Shuafat refugee camp in occupied Jerusalem, was shot by the Israeli occupation forces and died as a Martyr yesterday [Nov. 21, 2021] next to the Chain Gate, one of the gates of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque…
The occupation police claimed that a shooting operation occurred in the Old City of Jerusalem, in which 1 settler was killed and 3 others were wounded, one of them seriously (sic. 4 were wounded).”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 22, 2021]
While two of the four injured in the shooting attack were policemen, the other two were civilians. The murdered victim, Eliyahu Kay, was neither a policeman nor a “settler”. Rather, Eliyahu was a civilian who had moved to Israel a number of years ago. He lived in Modi’in, a city well within Israel’s 1949 armistice lines, and worked in the Old City of Jerusalem.
In its attempts to distort reality, the PA never recognizes that Palestinians are terrorists. Similarly, it never recognizes that Palestinian terrorists murder innocent civilians. As a means to attribute a modicum of moral decency from the point of view of the PA, Palestinians only attack “occupation soldiers”, “occupation policemen” or “settlers”. Even American Taylor Force who was murdered in Tel Aviv was call a “settler” on PA TV news. For the PA, the real identity of the victims, or where they live, is irrelevant. For the PA, which sees “Palestine” as encompassing and erasing all of Israel, all Israelis are “settlers” no matter where they live.
When the PA dubs the terrorist a “Martyr,” it is, in essence, celebrating his death and condoning his actions. Becoming a Martyr in Islam represents the highest religious achievement that can be attained by a Muslim, according to PA teachings, and the Martyr is granted numerous rewards.