Why is this woman important?
I love the identification given for this picture by Yahoo!
Mariam Farhat , 56, pauses in her house in Gaza City, Thursday, Feb. 16 2006. Farhat will be among 74 Hamas lawmakers ushering in a new era Saturday: they will take their oath of office and assume control of the 132-seat Palestinian parliament after their election victory last month.
Mrs. Farhat is, of course, simply one of those ‘good government’ types who was voted into office during the “reform” campaign that Hamas ran.
But the AP doesn’t tell us the rest of the story. Mrs. Farhat actually derives her popularity from the fact that she is the mother of 3 shahids. Three of her sons were killed attacking Israelis. And she’s proud of that.
She said later, in a much-publicized quotation, that she wished she had 100 sons to sacrifice that way.
In a hagiographic portrait of Mrs. Farhat and other female Hamas politicians the NY Times delicately allows that her history may be
particularly troubling to many in Israel and the outside world.
One would hope that anyone with a conscience would find her views troubling; not just “…in Israel and the outside world.”
Of course that troubling aspect to her history is missing from that AP caption. Including it would have bucked the conventional wisdom that Hamas won because of its “good government” campaign.
Technorati tags: Mariam Farhat, Hamas.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.
not only is that twisted but sickening to rob your children of their youth. and then go on about it being a great thing. disgraceful to us and to the muslims a pride of joy? but wait the americans are the bad ones? can we say confused??? what a country……
Comment by danielle
— February 21, 2006 @ 9:08 pm