Palestinian Authority Names Street in Honor Of Terrorist Who Killed Two Israelis and Wounded A Woman and Child

The Palestinian Authority appears to have too many streets named Elm or Main street. Instead, it has decided to name a street after a murderous terrorist, Muhammad Halabi, 19, on the outskirts of Ramallah. Halabi stabbed to death two Israelis, Rabbi Nehemiah Lavi and Aharon Bennett, in the Old City of Jerusalem on Oct. 3 and also injured Bennett’s wife Adele and their 2-year-old son in the attack. Now Palestinians can live on Halabi street to honor these infamous acts.

Nehamia Lavi, 41, was a rabbi for the right-wing settlement group Ateret Cohanim, which seeks to create a Jewish majority inside the Old City. Halabi stabbed the two ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and wounded the wife of one of them. He then reportedly took a gun from one of the men and fired at tourists and security forces in the area, wounding the couple’s 2-year-old son. He was later shot by Israeli forces.

After the murders by his son, the father of Halabi proclaimed that “I am proud of my son and what he did − he has done what 1.5 million Muslims have failed to do.”

The Palestinian Authority said that the naming of the street was “to honor Halabi, who carried out a stabbing and shooting operation against settlers in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem.” Muhammad Hussein, mayor of Surda-Abu Qash, insisted that “This is the least we can do for Martyr Halabi.”

Now here is the truly mind-blowing element. The Palestinian Bar Association has awarded an honorary law degree on a man who stabbed two people and injured a woman and a baby. It is hard to imagine a more antithetical figure for the concept of the rule of law.

I understand that there is extremism on both sides and I certainly understand that there have been deaths on both sides (including stabbings by Israelis). However, any hope to claim a higher moral ground is lost when the Palestinians select a knife wielding murderer as an honored symbol — and honorary lawyer — in their society.

What do you think?