See the Facebook Post by a Palestinian Political Group Apparently Praising a 9-Year-Old Girl's Shooting That's Now Been Yanked

Fatah, the largest political party that makes up the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority, apparently used its official Facebook page over the weekend to praise the shooter of an Israeli girl. And now the controversial post appears to have been removed.

Nine-year-old Noam Glick was playing in her backyard Saturday night in the Psagot Jewish community of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) when a gunman believed to be Palestinian approached her and shot her in the upper body.

Her father, Israel Glick, described the frightening experience to Army Radio: "We went outside and found Noam standing and she told me 'father there's an Arab here.' I realized that this was a security incident and a nightmare, this is the scariest thing that could happen to a family, that a terrorist wants to break inside our home.”

“Then I pulled Noam into the house. Noam surprised the terrorist and actually scared him so that instead of entering our house - he shot her,” Glick said.

Screenshot: Facebook "Fatah - The Main Page," Oct. 6, 2013 (Courtesy: Palestinian Media Watch)

Israeli residents of the community were shaken by Saturday night's incident, fearing it could have resulted in a more devastating casualty count such as occurred in 2011 when five members of the Fogel family were massacred in Itamar.

After the attack, Fatah took to social media to praise the perpetrator who wounded the girl and who is still at large.

The Fatah Facebook page post appeared to draw a parallel between a Palestinian sniper attack that killed an Israeli soldier in Hebron two weeks ago with the lurking of the gunman at the Jewish settlement on Saturday night.

In the post, Fatah praises "the sniper of Palestine" who began his work in Hebron (the shooting of the soldier) and then passed through El-Bireh (referring apparently to the shooting of the girl which took place near the Palestinian town of El-Bireh):

"The sniper of Palestine was here. He saluted Hebron, and rested in El-Bireh. He left the signature of [real] men in different parts of the homeland. He saluted and left, and moved on to a different place, with a new signature, as he tells the stories of those who love the homeland," the October 6 Facebook post under “Fatah-The Main Page” read.

Palestinian Media Watch, an Israel-based research organization, uncovered the post and translated it to English. After it posted its translation from Arabic on Sunday and the Israeli media reported on it, the post was quietly removed from the Fatah Facebook page. Palestinian Media Watch tells TheBlaze that the post had originally been at this link which is no longer valid.

“The Facebook page where this glorification of ‘the sniper of Palestine’ was posted, called ‘Fatah - The Main Page,’ is an official Fatah Facebook page. The page defines itself as belonging to the Fatah Mobilization and Organization Commission. Each Fatah commission has an official website. The official website of Fatah's Mobilization and Organization Commission links to this Facebook page,” explains Palestinian Media Watch.

The newspaper Maariv quoted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking about the shooting during his cabinet meeting on Sunday, saying, “As long as incitement continues in the Palestinian media, the [Palestinian] Authority cannot evade responsibility for these incidents.”

Palestinian Media Watch has reported extensively in articles and in its book Deception: Betraying the Peace Process, by  Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, on how terrorism is glorified in the official Palestinian Authority media and among its most senior government officials.

Just last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas eulogized a terrorist who killed 15 Israelis in 1975 using a refrigerator filled with explosives. “Fatah lost a beacon,” Abbas said in a written statement read at the memorial service on the same day Abbas was touting peace at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.

As TheBlaze reported last week, the U.S. Army was criticized by pro-Palestinian activists for including the Palestinian flag as the symbol of a terrorist group in an anti-terrorism training manual. The question was also raised why Fatah was included at all in the terrorist manual since the group has for years been an interlocutor with the United States.

“It is also bizarre that the PLO and its main faction Fatah should appear in a guide to ‘terrorist’ groups at all,” wrote Electronic Intifada, a pro-Palestinian website.

Fatah is not designated as a terrorist group by the State Department, but this latest Facebook post plus other examples reflect the continued vocal support the influential Palestinian group provides to perpetrators of terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.

On Sunday, senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub seemed to blame Israel for the nine-year-old girl’s shooting. He told Israel Radio that while he condemns the shooting of the child, he also blames the Israeli government.

“Listen, listen, I condemn everything that causes damage.  I condemn it and I condemn those responsible for it. And those responsible for it are the Government of Israel and the prime minister of Israel,” he told Israel Radio.

According to Israel National News, Rajoub said the Israeli government is responsible, because it “incites and provokes by building settlements.”

The girl, Noam Glick, is currently recovering in the hospital, while Israel Defense Forces continue to search for the perpetrator.

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