Paris suburb Wednesday to honor Palestinian who killed Israeli minister
Assassin of Rehavam Zeevi, freed in Schalit exchange, among PFLP members set to attend ceremony
JTA – A French town is scheduled to host a ceremony on Wednesday honoring several Palestinian terrorists.
Among the terrorists are Allam Kaabi and Salah Hamouri, who are are scheduled to appear at the Bourse de Travail building, which belongs to the municipality of St. Denis, a suburb of the French capital.
Kaabi, of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), planned and carried out the 2001 assassination of Israel’s tourism minister, Rehavam Ze’evi. Hamouri, also of the PFLP, was arrested for plotting to assassinate Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Hamouri was one of the 1,027 prisoners exchanged in 2011 for Gilad Shalit, a citizen of France and Israel. He is scheduled to appear at the Sait-Denis event.
The event is organized by the “national collective for just and viable peace between Palestinians and Israelis,” a group known by its French acronym CNPJDPI. Also present will be a representative of Amnesty International, Martine Brizemur, according to a statement by the organization. The men scheduled to speak are described as “recently released prisoners” in the statement.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center has sent a letter of protest to the Association of French Mayors listing the crimes for which the men were sentenced and the circumstances of their release.
Speaking via a video uplink will be Fathya Barghouti, the wife of Majdi Rimawi — a PFLP terrorist who was convicted in 2008 of shooting Ze’evi in Jerusalem along with three other men. In February, Rimawi was made honorary citizen of Bezons, another suburb of Paris.
“As we watch the Boston bombings unfold, it is perverse for any official in France to welcome the perpetrators of similar atrocities, whatever their origin or ideology,” the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations, Shimon Samuels, wrote.
