SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR SELLING LAND TO JEWS

The one factor that unites the divided Arab world is the hatred of Jews. That hatred is often exemplified by terrorist attacks against Israel, as well as attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions in Europe, Asia, South America and other parts of the non-Muslim world.

For the Palestinians, hatred of the Jews is the engine that drives their daily lives.

Here is an excerpt from ‘Hemorrhage of Hatred’ by Caroline Glick that was published in the April 20 issue of Jewish World Review:

[Hatred of Jews] is a reflection of the values of Palestinian society. Those values are continuously expressed and reinforced by Fatah and Hamas controlled media outlets, cultural and educational institutions and religious authorities. The ubiquitousness of Jew hatred in the daily lives of Palestinians is so overwhelming it is difficult to imagine any facet of Palestinian life that isn't inundated by it.

Take grammar lessons. According to a translation provided by Palestinian Media Watch, the Palestinian Authority's Arabic language matriculation examinations for high school students include questions such as, "Punctuate the underlined phrase: Do not view the occupier as human." And "Punctuate the underlined phrase: We shall die in order that our land may live."

This week a Palestinian Authority court sentenced Muhammad Abu Shahala to death for selling a home in Hebron near the Cave of the Patriarchs to Jews. Shahala was arrested shortly after several Jewish families moved into the house last month. He was reportedly tortured and quickly tried and sentenced to die by a PA court.

The PA was established in May 1994. The first law it adopted defined selling land to Jews a capital offense. Shortly thereafter scores of Arab land sellers began turning up dead in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria in both judicial and extrajudicial killings.

Leaders of the Jewish community of Hebron wrote a letter to international leaders this week asking them to intervene with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and demand that he cancel Shahala's sentence. They addressed the letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, the Director General of the International Red Cross Yves Daccord as well as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres.

In it they wrote, "It is appalling to think that property sales should be defined as a 'capital crime' punishable by death. The very fact that such a 'law' exists within the framework of the PA legal system points to a barbaric and perverse type of justice, reminiscent of practices implemented during the dark ages."

They went on to make the reasonable comparison between the PA's law prohibiting land sales to Jews to Nazi Germany's Nuremburg laws that constrained and finally outlawed trade between Jews and Germans. The letter concluded with the question, "Is the Palestinian Authority a reincarnation of the Third Reich?"