Columnist In Jordanian Government Daily Expresses Love And Admiration For Palestinian Terrorist Dalal Al-Mughrabi: I Would Roll In The Dust Of Your Grave

On May 27, 2018, in his column in the Jordanian government daily Al-Rai, 'Abd Al-Hadi Raji Al-Majali wrote in love and praise of Palestinian terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who led the bus hijacking attack on Israel's coastal road on March 11, 1978, in which 35 Israeli citizens were killed, twelve of them children. In his column, in the form of a love letter to Mughrabi, Al-Majali describes how he raises in his children to be brave like her and how he longs to roll in the dust of her grave.

This is not the first time  Al-Majali has extoled terrorist attacks against Israelis in his column. For example,  on February 7, 2017, he heaped praise on the terrorist Ahmad Nasr Jarrar, who murdered an Israeli citizen in a drive-by shooting attack on January 9, 2018 and was later killed by Israeli security forces.[1] In October 2015, during the wave of stabbing attacks perpetrated during the Al-Quds intifada, he published a column in which he addressed former Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, writing: "Oh you who rest in Ramallah, it is now your privilege to smile a bit, because the seeds of the revolution that you sowed in the land of Palestine are now sprouting our sharp knives, and their blades are [stabbing] the head and the vein [of the Israelis]."[2]

Abd Al-Hadi Raji Al-Majali (Source: https://www.facebook.com/a.raji.almajali, May 1, 2017)

The following are translated excerpts from Abd Al-Hadi Raji Al-Majali's column about Dalal Mughrabi:

"For a long time now I have been reading about Dalal Mughrabi. That Palestinian girl has bewitched me. To tell the truth, I am in love with this martyr. She set off in the late 1970s from the beaches of Lebanon to command a squad of self-sacrificing [fidai] fighters to carry out the most impressive and dangerous operation in northern Palestine. She killed at least 30 Israeli soldiers.[3] And she was not yet twenty years old. To this day, no one knows where Israel hid her body. Her operation came in response to [an operation carried out by Ehud] Barak, when he led a commando unit and assassinated several senior members of the PLO while dressed as a woman.[4] At the time, Abu Jihad [head of the PLO military wing] said: 'We the Palestinians will not hide in women's clothing, on the contrary, we will send you a woman,' and he sent Dalal.

"Some 40 years have passed since the most beautiful and precious of women died a martyr's death... She came to Palestine to give her life, and when she breathed her final breath, after the bullet broke her body, [Ehud] Barak arrived and finished her off with his pistol. The photograph was published in all the newspapers of the world, but [her] spirit rose above the land of Palestine just as she longed for it to.

"Oh Dalal, yesterday at bedtime I told my children your story. I do not believe in telling children fairytales. I am not interested in Cinderella or Thumbelina... I won't tell my children those stories. Dalal is the story. I told them that you were the most beautiful of girls, that your toy was a rifle, and that as the sea carried you to Palestine[5] it combed your lovely hair and tied your braids with ribbons. I also told them that the sea bid you farewell when your noble foot stepped on the beach of Palestine...

"I am enraptured by the martyr – by Dalal – and my children have become like me, oh [my] love. Every day they ask me to complete the story for them. I told them that you are still alive, hiding under a tree in Jaffa, and that you come out every night and visit the families of the martyrs and walk among the olive trees and the ruined houses. I told them that you visited Kerak [in Jordan], toured the fortress and blessed the people, the trees, and the history of the place.

"Oh Dalal, I know that no road is named after you, no library, and not even a poem. No star bears your name, and no moon, and not even an olive tree. But I ignored all that, and I called my heart after you, Dalal... If one day I will be able to make a serious search, it will be for your burial place in Palestine. There I will roll in the dust of your grave, and perhaps this may restore  my Arabness."[6]