A French mayor whose municipality recently honored the Palestinian murderer of Israeli minister Rehavam Ze'evi defended the move and accused critics of “hatred” and “complicity in occupation.”
Mayor
Dominique Lesparre of the Paris suburb of Bezons said in a statement
released on Wednesday that his municipality’s vote last month to name
Majdi Al-Rimawi an honorary resident was part of a “tradition of peace,
solidarity and cooperation with the Palestinian people.”
An
Israeli court convicted Rimawi, a member of the terrorist organization
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, for the murder of Tourism Minister Ze’evi in Jerusalem in 2001, along with three other
shooters.
The decision
to honor Rimawi, who is jailed in Israel, was made known in the
city’s official newsletter in an article which said his only crime was
to strive toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. The article
did not mention the murder.
It triggered strong-worded
condemnations from the Israeli government, the CRIF umbrella group of
French Jewish communities, and the European Jewish Congress, whose
president Moshe Kantor called the move “outrageous and horrific.”
Lesparre called these reactions “hateful,” adding: “It strengthens our resolve to defend the noble and just Palestinian cause.”
“It
does not surprise us that this act of solidarity invokes hostile
reactions by some of the participants of the occupation of Palestinian
territories,” Lesparre said. "Any criticism of Israeli leaders or
reference to the Palestinians' suffering is systematically condemned as
anti-Semitic."