Despite President Donald Trump's straight talk to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas about the need to stop supporting and commending terror, another educational institution in the Palestinian Authority has been named for Dalal Mughrabi, who headed the brutal murder of no fewer than 37 people in the Coastal Highway massacre in 1978. The most lethal terror attack in Israel's history, it included the hijacking of a bus by Mughrabi and other Fatah terrorists, as well as random shootings at cars on the highway and passengers on the bus. The dead included 12 children, and over 70 people were wounded. The new center's inauguration ceremony was held last week in the PA town of Burqa, near Shechem (Nablus). The Jerusalem-based Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which monitors anti-Israel and anti-Jewish media and education in the Palestinian Authority, reports that the sign on the new building includes logos of the PA's Ministry of Local Government, United Nations Women, and the Norwegian Representative Office to the PA. Ironically, the center's purpose is billed as "focus[ing] especially on the history of the struggle of Martyr Dalal Mughrabi and on presenting it to the youth groups." Thus, this is yet another "show of admiration for terrorist murderers," PMW reports, in accordance with the Palestinian Authority's "policy of presenting them as role models for Palestinian youth." The 12 children killed in the onslaught led by Mughrabi were: Ilan Hochman, 3 Roi Hochman, 6 Galit Ankwa, 2 Yitzchak Ankwa, 10 Yoav Meshkel, 6 Liat Gal-on, 6 Tali Aharonovitch, 14 Naomi Elichai, 18 Erez Alfred, 5 Mordechai Zit, 6 Naamah Hadani, 5 Omri Tel-Oren, 14 When PA leader Mahmoud Abbas visited Washington earlier this month, US President Trump told him that lasting peace cannot be expected until PA “leaders speak in a unified voice against incitement to … violence and hate." Trump also raised concerns over the PA’s program of paying terrorists and their families. The purpose of the new Dalal Mughrabi center, initiated by the Palestinian "Women's Technical Affairs Committee" (WTAC), is specifically to educate youth about Mughrabi's murderous terror attack, as explained by a village council member at the inauguration. Norway's involvement is particularly jarring. [Ed. note: It was later reported that Norway had demanded that its logo be withdrawn from the sign and the money used for the cultural center be returned. ] The Norwegian Representative Office's website, accessed by PMW, states that it and other Norwegian cultural institutions "are among the main cooperation partners in the culture sector in Palestine. The NRO culture program includes supporting cultural rights and increasing the capacity of the culture sector, through civil society organizations that can play the role as agents of change…" UN Women is listed on WTAC's website as a "partner," and in fact is a donor of the WATC. PMW notes that in addition to the new center, three schools and a computer center in the PA have also been named after Mughrabi.
