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Residents of illegal Jewish
settlements are adding insult upon murder and injury to
the bodies of the young
Palestinian freedom fighters by wrapping the corpses in lard and
pigskin before returning
them for burial to their families.
The illegal Jewish
settlements of Gush Katif, in Gaza, and Efrat, outside Bethlehem,
claim practicing this
disrespectful and unclean pre-burial rite. The Jews are
hoping
to discourage young men
from retaliation of the occupation. The Deputy Minister
for
Internal Security,
Gideon Ezra, suggested this plan of burial during a live interview
on
Israeli radio in August
2001, since which some settlers have taken notice and put
into practice. In
a second interview, Mr. Ezra called for the security forces to
‘liquidate’
the fathers of these
young freedom fighters. He claims that the parents must
know what
their children are
planning and this is a way to stop any retaliation.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of
Efraat Kibbutz defended the practice of pigskin burials by saying
“If burial in pigskin
will deter suicide bombers then it is incumbent on us to do this.
We
should do anything to
save Jewish life.”
Pigs, which are
considered unclean in Islam & Judaism, are nonetheless being
raised at one kibbutz
and eaten by some secular Israelis.
Muslim Palestinians declare
that the bodies of the shaheed, (soldiers who die in holy war), are unaffected by any
taint and their souls
go to paradise. Sheikh Hassan Yousef of Hamas pronounced,
“The keys to Heaven are
not in the hands of Jewish settlers.”
* Saira W. Soufan is a
Pakistani-American studied in Biology and free lance social worker.
Married and living in Amman-Jordan.
Currently working as an assistant editor with the Jerusalem Forum.
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