Son of terror victim urges Scouts to drop Palestinians

The son of Richard Lakin, an American man killed in a Jerusalem terror attack, has called on the world Scouts organization to drop the membership of the Palestinian Scouts, which has glorified his father’s killer.

The Palestinian Scout Association, which was accepted six months ago as full member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, named its leadership training course which started last week after Lakin’s killer.

Publicity for the course, called the “Martyr – Leader Baha Alyan Course,” shows Alyan in a Palestinian scouts uniform. The Palestinian Scouts were a non-voting conditional member of the world body for 10 years prior to receiving acceptance to full membership.

“Should you allow the Palestinian Scout Association to keep its membership in the World Organization of the Scout Movement at the same time as they are presenting a murderer as a role model for future scout leaders, then your organization is effectively a co-sponsor of this terror promoting course,” Micah Lakin Avni writes to the world Scouts organization, in an open letter published by The Times of Israel.

“As long as Palestinian leaders nurture a culture of hate, encouraging school children to go out and kill, more violence is inevitable. By encouraging hatred, they distance all of us from the love of and belief in peaceful coexistence for which my father stood,” Lakin Avni also writes.

— JTA