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'KILL HIM, KILL HIM'
By WAEL AL-AHMAD
July 3, 2004 -- QABATIYA, West Bank — Palestinian militants yesterday publicly machine-gunned to death a suspected collaborator with Israel after onlookers in a crowded West Bank town square called for him to die.
Hundreds of spectators ringed four gunmen from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as they shot Muhammad Rafiq Daraghmeh, 45, a father of two, in Qabatiya.
Militants had hustled Daraghmeh into its main square before assembled townsfolk and asked him, "Are you a collaborator with the Israeli intelligence?" Daraghmeh said, "Yes."
He was also asked if he had sexually molested his two daughters as reported by relatives who said they had disowned him. Daraghmeh answered, "Yes."
A gunman turned to the crowd pressing around and said, "What should his sentence be?"
"Execution!" roared the throng. "Kill him, kill him!" they chanted as other residents whiled away the time in café nearby.
Witnessed by a Reuters news team, the militants pushed the cowering Daraghmeh to the ground, riddled him with automatic fire, got into a car and sped off.
Militant groups have killed at least 30 compatriots accused of being informers for Israeli forces fighting an almost four-year revolt in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Daraghmeh was accused of guiding soldiers to hideouts of militants where they were captured or killed.
"It was necessary to make [Daraghmeh] an example for others to deter them from collaborating," said Jamal Abu Rab, local commander of the Brigades and regarded as the town's strongman.
The all-male crowd lingered over Daraghmeh's bloodied corpse until an ambulance arrived to remove it. Some spectators looked dazed but many expressed satisfaction, saying, "He deserved it."
A cousin of Daraghmeh told Reuters: "What he did was shameful. We considered him no longer one of us."
Daraghmeh bore signs of stab wounds that the cousin said were inflicted by an enraged brother.
Palestinian Authority officials criticized the killing.
"We want every act to be carried out via legal channels and oppose anyone who behaves otherwise. However, we are incapable of enforcing law and order in Palestinian areas [subject to] occupation," said local government minister Jamal al-Shobaki. Reuters
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/24344.htm
Their distorted perceptions of honor and allowing those views to dominate their actions consigns the Palestinans (and all like-minded Islamists) to an endless cycle of backward self-defeatism. That attitude also lends them a psychological crutch to deny responsibility for their crimes.
It's incurable. Put them down.