Palestinian envoy to the United Nations Riyad H. Mansour justified the brutal murder of three members of an Israeli Jewish family last Friday, in comments earlier this week at the UN.
Yosef Salomon, 70, and his children Chaya Salomon, 46, and Elad Salomon, 36, were stabbed to death in the family home in the settlement of Halamish in Samaria by a 19-year-old Palestinian terrorist. They had gathered to celebrate the Jewish Sabbath. Several relatives escaped and survived, but the images of the murder scene, with blood all over the family kitchen, shocked Israelis.
Mansour, whose official title is Ambassador and Permanent Observer to the State of Palestine to the UN (though no such state exists), was asked about the attack on Monday. Not only did he decline to condemn the murders, but he also managed to blame them on Israel — and incite more of the same “resistance”:
Reporter: Mr. Ambassador, could you say a few words in relation to the attack on the family on Friday night, the Salomon family? Surely you can’t condone that kind of violent attack?
Mansour: You see, that when you have an occupation with its ruthlessness, as we see it, and we see a manifestation of it, of involving violation of international law at the magnitude of war crimes such as settlements [sic], then don’t expect all Palestinians to be angels, not to react to it. Even some might take the issue in their hand as individuals. That is not necessarily the policy of the Palestinian government or the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization or the state of Palestine [sic]. We should not lose sight of the huge crime committed against the millions of Palestinians in the occupied territory by the Israeli occupying authority, its military forces, and the settlers, and settlers’ terrorism, and the armed settlers. Because almost all settlers are carrying weapons and they are armed, therefore they are malicious, they attack the Palestinian people, they steal their land, they destroy their crops, they are making their life miserable. And if people think that the Palestinian people are going to live that situation without any form of resistance to it, that is not realistic, and that is not fair. Thank you very much.
Video of Mansour’s remarks is here; the relevant portion starts at 15:30.
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