The political party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas praised the gunman who murdered two Israelis in Jerusalem on Sunday, referring to him as a “martyr” on social media.

Musbah Abu Sbeih opened fire on a crowd of people waiting for a train, wounding six and killing two others before being fatally shot by police. The deceased victims were identified as 60-year-old Levana Malihi, a retired Knesset employee and grandmother of six, and 29-year-old Yosef Kirma, a decorated Border Police officer who attempted to charge the gunman. Abu Sbeih was supposed to have reported to prison on Sunday due to a prior conviction for assaulting a police officer.

Two posts on Fatah’s official Facebook page praised Abu Sbeih, the watchdog organization Palestinian Media Watch found. One read:

The one who carried out the operation (i.e., terror attack, 2 murdered) today in Jerusalem is a pilgrim [to Mecca] Martyr (Shahid) Musbah Abu Sbeih (40), one of the most prominent people in Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and a released prisoner.

He was supposed to turn himself in today and begin a sentence of four months on charges of Ribat (i.e., religious conflict/war over land claimed to be Islamic) at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and hitting the occupation’s soldiers.

A second post proclaimed that Fatah’s Jerusalem branch would undergo “mourning and a general strike today in Jerusalem in memory of the souls of the Martyrs of Palestine and this morning’s Martyr Musbah Abu Sbeih.”

Calling a terrorist a “martyr” is “a status the Palestinian Authority presents as the highest achievement a Muslim can reach in life,” Palestinian Media Watch explained.

The terror organization Hamas claimed Abu Sbeih as one of its members. Qatar-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal stated that Abu Sbeih’s actions had “defended the Palestinian people.”

Dozens of Palestinian residents of eastern Jerusalem arrived at Abu Sbeih’s home to pay their respects after hearing news of his attack, Israel Hayom reported. “We are proud of his actions,” his sister said, according to the outlet. “Bless us, don’t offer condolences. My brother died a holy death. We thank Allah for that.”

Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, tweeted that some Palestinians distributed candy in the streets after hearing news of the attack.

أتعجّب من هؤلاء الحاقدين الّذين لا أصل ولا فصل ولا شرف لهم… أين التّقوى يا موزّعي الحلوى؟!
ويلكم من ربّكم pic.twitter.com/JZwjcYNmAx

— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) October 9, 2016

State Department spokesperson Mark Toner condemned the attack and the glorification of the terrorist in a statement. “There is absolutely no justification for the taking of innocent lives,” he said. He also condemned “the statements glorifying this reprehensible and cowardly attack,” but did not mention Fatah, Hamas, or any other source for those statements.

Malihi, one of the victims, had worked for 30 years at the Knesset. “Veteran Knesset workers remember a very warm woman, beloved by all, dedicated, caring, and humble,” the Knesset Spokesperson’s office said in a statement. “Even after her retirement in 2010, Levana stayed in touch with the Knesset and kept participating in various Knesset events.”

Kirma, who was newly married, was a member of the Border Police’s Special Patrol Unit. He had previously been commended for stopping a man who was acting strangely near a school in December 2015. The man was discovered to be carrying a knife and admitted under questioning to have planned a stabbing attack.

After reviewing decades of Palestinian public opinion polling, Dan Polisar, the provost of Shalem College, observed in Mosaic last September that “Palestinian perpetrators of violence reflect and are acting on the basis of views widely held in their society.” Reports by the Middle East Media Research Institute and The New York Times last year shed light on the widespread incitement that stokes this extremism, which ranges from popular hashtags such as “slaughtering the Jews” to songs that encourage Palestinians to “Stab the Zionist and say God is great.”

In addition to publicly glorifying terrorists, the Palestinian Authority and Fatah also encourages terrorism by paying jailed terrorists and their families. The United Kingdom suspended $30 million in payments to the PA last week while it investigated whether its aid was being disbursed to families of terrorists.

Abbas does not deny that his government pays salaries to terrorists and their families, but the PA claims that the funds come from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), not its own budget, which is heavily subsidized by foreign donations. However, Yigal Carmon, president and founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute, testified to Congress in July that in order to mislead donor countries who were pressuring the PA to stop rewarding terrorism, the PA transferred the role of distribution of money from a PA ministry to a PLO commission in 2014. The PA is still the source of the funding, and the same bureaucrat oversees the payments, he explained. Palestinian Media Watch also reported that the money is still controlled by the same officials and comes from the PA’s budget.

[Photo: Hadas Parush / Flash90 ]