Posted on 01/28/2006 5:21:24 PM PST by SJackson
She has encouraged three of her sons to die attacking Israel, and would be proud if the other three followed suit. She appeared in a video with her youngest boy, Mohammed, 17, telling him not to return alive from a suicide mission. Now she is a democratically elected Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
On the electoral rolls, she is listed as Maryam Farahat. To Palestinians she is known as "the mother of the struggle".
To Israelis, however, she is the mother only of a deadly, terrorist brood - and a political travesty.
Her home in Gaza has become a shrine to her dead sons. In front of traditional "martyrdom" posters in which her dead children - one little more than a boy - tote high-powered rifles, she explains the "holy duty" of suicide missions.
"Encouraging my sons to be martyrs is serving Islam," she said through her fourth son, Wesam, 33, who says that, like his fellow "Mujahideen", he considers "martyrdom the way to liberation".
Now she has a different "duty", and one about which she admits she knows little: politics. After a shock win this week, she was hurriedly reading up on Hamas literature to ensure she does not break the party line.
"It is two parts of the same duty," she said. "Politics and martyrdom. My sons gave their lives for their people. Politics is my way to give."
The first of her "sacrifices" came in 2002, when she appeared in a video message with her son, Mohammed, before he launched a gun and grenade attack on an Israeli settlement in the Gaza strip. "I always longed to be the mother of a martyr," she said afterwards. At his side on the film, she instructed the boy not to come back alive. He didn't.
Neither did 18-year-old Ariel Zana, an Israeli who was attending a lecture in the settlement of Atzmona when Mohammed Farahat burst into the hall. In all, Mohammed killed five Israeli youths before he himself was brought down.
"I feel weak, I have lost most of my strength. I am bleeding," Avi Zana, Ariel's father, told the Sunday Telegraph. "The mother of the one who killed my son and that encouraged him to do so will be in parliament now. It doesn't make sense. It's so dangerous. This is a red line that has been crossed."
In Gaza, when the news filtered back to Maryam Farahat that Mohammed had followed her instructions, she received guests with coffee and sweets, bathing in what she described as a new-found "strength and honour".
For Hamas, that glowing reputation among Palestinians was too good not to exploit for last week's legislative poll. On the campaign trail she was a hot ticket at rallies, drawing thousands of attentive listeners as she described the "duty to liberate the [Palestinian] homeland".
Wesam is one of three surviving sons of Mrs Farahat. After Mohammed was killed in Atzmona, his brother, Nidal, was killed in an Israeli assassination. Known as a master engineer, he had refined the home-made Qassam mortars with which Hamas militants have peppered Israeli settlements and towns. In 2003, he was working on a new bomb-carrying drone when booby-trapped parts exploded, killing him and five others.
Mrs Farahat said she was "dignified and honoured" by his death, and took comfort from the Israeli fatalities he had helped inflict. After Nidal's death, Hamas continued to use his Qassam rockets.
Farwad Farahat was heading to a launch site in 2005 when his car was hit by an Israeli missile.
In the dust and sand of her Gaza home, all three of Mrs Farahat's dead sons are celebrated in print. But now her own election campaign posters cover the walls too.
Hamas' rise to power, and hers with it, has done little to dispel speculation that this week's poll will only worsen the cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Speaking calmly, in a soft voice, she has repeatedly said she would be delighted for "all my sons [to] be martyrs".
Like many Israelis, Avi Zana is not in a mood to tolerate more attacks. "Today, I am more hateful than I was," said Mr Zana. "We should have been tougher, we forget too fast here that thousands of Israelis have been killed. I used to forgive, but not today. Today I feel more in the mood for vengeance."
There must be someplace worse than hell for this piece of garbage.
Oh great...a Palestinian Cindy Sheehan.
Mother Who Sent Sons on Suicide Missions Becomes Candidate
Arab mother Um Nidal sent three children on anti-Israel death missions. Now she is the first female candidate on the Hamas list in the upcoming Palestinian Authority parliamentary elections.
In the film that made Nidal famous, she advised her son on combat techniques before he murdered five Jewish students in 2002. The five students were taking part in a Torah lecture when Nidal's son entered the lecture hall, spraying gunfire and throwing grenades at the unarmed students. In addition to the five killed, 24 others were wounded.
In an interview filmed after the terrorist attack, Nidal said her only regret was that so few Jews were killed. "I prayed that dozens would die," said Nidal. "But even the elimination of a single Jew is an event to be celebrated."
Nidal's other sons weren't as successful in their bids for martyrdom. Nidhal was killed by the Israeli Army while preparing for an attack. Rawad was in a vehicle laden with Kassam rockets when an Israel Air Force helicopter blew it up with a missile. Um Nidal has three more sons she hopes will carry on the family tradition of murdering Jews. "They are too lazy to get jobs," said Nidal. "So far as I can see, suicide attacks are their best career option."
Nidal said she takes comfort in knowing that Muslims outnumber Jews by 100:1 worldwide. "If it takes fewer than 100 Muslim deaths to kill one Jew, we are coming out ahead," Nidal said.
In terms of the upcoming Palestinian elections, Nidal is considered a "moderate."
http://www.azconservative.org/Semmens28.htm
"When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a few minutes before. . was your best friend's face. . .you'll know what to do."
Goebbels sacrificed his children for the Third Reich, also. These people are sick beyond all human decency. They are the people Israel is supposed to negotiate with.
And we thought the Indians were Barbarians.
This is simply a dangerous position we find ourselves in 2006.
10,000 years ago the king of China recalled all his ships and burned them at the docks and built the great wall to keep the world out because he knew then what a screwed up world it was.
It is time to come home, close our borders, let the world figure out who they want to win and we will then talk with the winner.
Why doesn't the bitch do it herself and spare her children?
Come to think of it, where's dad?
Women have been known to sell their children into prostitution and slavery.
In southeastern Europe, a woman had multiple children to sell for their body parts.
What's the difference?
Anything you can imagine, somebody will do--and far more that you could never imagine.
Talk about a breeder.
"Mother of the struggle"? Isn't that a term that the gimmiecrats would use to elevate their latest seditionist?
That struck you too, also. Sounds like a heathen people sacrificing their children to evil false gods.
The best thing I can say about this article is that this woman will end up with what she wants - no children. I hope the vision of her sons being blown into bloody pieces haunts her in a way she doesn't expect when she gets older. Sort of like a post birth abortion.
"I used to forgive, but not today. Today I feel more in the mood for vengeance."
Another liberal mugged by reality. Yes, there is evil in this world.
If she feels so passionately about it ... why does she not give her own life? She must have some doubts about her cause.
LMAO!!!
I can just picture the three sons looking at each other and whispering, "Uh.... you wanna go first?" I don't imagine there's any chance the scumbag "mom" would go first.
See my FreeRepublic Homepage.
They are varelse.
What contents? There is only a void filled with moths in her head.
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