Photos: Palestinian City Honors Saddam Hussein With Monument, Street Naming

saddam
MEMRI

TEL AVIV – A Palestinian city showed its gratitude to Saddam Hussein by unveiling a memorial and naming a street after the late Iraqi dictator, the Middle East Media Research Institute reported on Friday. 

Rafi’ Rawajba, district governor of the West Bank city of Qalqilya, presented the memorial depicting an image of Saddam, who was known for supporting the Palestinians, saluting in military garb sandwiched between the Iraqi and Palestinian flags. The other side of the monument shows Saddam in a suit wielding a rifle.

The memorial also has the slogan “Saddam Hussein – The Master of the Martyrs in Our Age,” inscribed on it and the phrase “Arab Palestine from the River to the Sea,” which Saddam often repeated.

The ceremony was attended by local officials and Rakad Salem, the secretary-general of the Arab Liberation Front (ALF), a Palestinian faction that had ties with Saddam’s Ba’ath party in Iraq.

Governor Rawajba praised the Iraqi tyrant as “an emblem of heroism, honor, originality and defiance, as was the martyr (late PLO leader) Yasser Arafat.”

He continued by noting that both leaders were “a compass for the Arabs and their resolute decisions, and when they departed, Arabism departed with them. President Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] makes sure to follow in the footsteps of these two great leaders.”

City Council member Hani Ja’idi said the memorial “commemorates the martyrs and great leaders.”

Salam, who said that he was speaking “on behalf of the Ba’ath Party,” emphasized “the glorious deeds of the martyr Saddam Hussein and his support for the liberation movements, in particular the Palestinian revolution and the PLO” and underscored the need to “deepen national unity in order to stand firm in the face of all the plots that are concocted against our people.”


The memorial inauguration ceremony (image: Facebook.com/qalqilia.gov, October 18, 2017, retrieved by MEMRI)

 


The memorial (image: Facebook.com/qalqilya.alhadath, September 19, 2017, retrieved by MEMRI)

 


The monument bears the slogan “Arab Palestine from the River to the Sea” (image: Facebook.com/qalqilia.gov, October 18, 2017, retrieved by MEMRI))

 

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