The Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to glorify terrorists and to present them as role models for children.

In a school in Tulkarem (West Bank) this week, a soccer tournament was named after Ziyad Da’as. Da’as planned the attack in which a gunman opened fire with an M-16 rifle at a Bat Mitzvah in Hadera in January 2002, killing six and wounding 30. He was also behind the kidnapping and murder of two Israelis in Tulkarem in 2001. Da’as, a Fatah-Tanzim city commander, was killed by Israel in August 2002.

Significantly, the article indicated that the tournament took place in a Palestinian school and that the school administration was thanked "for providing the means for its success." Some Western governments have recently renewed funding of the Palestinian Authority, including its educational infrastructures, based on the assumption that schools are involved in positive education.

It should also be noted that in reporting the story, the PA daily glorified the terrorist as “one of the brave people of the Palestinian resistance." The daily Al Hayat Al Jadida is owned by the Palestinian Authority, and is therefore indirectly funded by Western money.

The following is an excerpt from the article:

Headline: "The team named after the Shahids (Martyrs) of the Southern Quarter wins the tournament cup named after the Shahid Ziyad Da’as.

This tournament…commemorates one of the brave people of the Palestinian resistance, whom the Israeli occupation forces assassinated in cold blood…

The committee that organized the tournament thanked the administration of the school... for hosting the tournament in the school yard and for providing the means for its success...

At the end of the tournament, the viewers indicated that the tournament was in a level to suitably commemorate the brave Shahid (Martyr), the mercy of Allah be upon him, Ziyad Da’as, and that an annual tournament should take place on the anniversary of his death." [Al Hayat Al Jadida, August 15, 2007]