Israel Matzav

110 of 120 members of Jordanian parliament petition to free mass murderer of Jews

110 out of 120 members of the Jordanian parliament have signed a petition calling for the release of Jordanian Army Corporal Ahmed Daqamseh. In 1997, Daqamseh opened fire on a group of 80 Israeli teenagers from Beit Shemesh on the Naharayim 'peace island' between Jordan and Israel, murdering seven of them and wounding five more. The massacre would have been worse if Daqamseh's weapons had not jammed. Daqamseh complained that the girls who died were disturbing his prayers.

Daqamseh opened fire on a group of 80 seventh and eight grade school girls from AMIT Fuerst School in Bet Shemesh, who were visiting the "Island of Peace," a joint Israeli-Jordanian tourist resort under Jordanian rule.

Following the massacre, the late King Hussein of Jordan apologized for the attack and traveled to Israel to pay respect to the grieving families.

In February 2011, Jordanian Justice Minister Hussein Mjali, who previously served as Daqamseh's defense lawyer during the 1997 trial, called Daqamseh a hero and added that "if a Jew murdered Arabs, they'd [the Israelis] build him a statue."

Daqamseh was sentenced by a Jordanian military tribunal to life in prison at hard labor. He was spared the death penalty because the tribunal determined he was mentally unstable.

In an interview Daqamseh gave in 2004 to Jordanian weekly a-Shahed, he expressed pride in his actions and said that "if I could return to that moment, I'd behave exactly the same way. Every day that passes, I grow stronger in the belief that what I did was my duty."

Daqanseh claimed the Israeli girls interrupted his prayer by whistling and clapping. He told a-Shahed he tried to ignore the girls' behavior, but their persistence insulted and angered him. "I felt my blood boiling, so I stopped my prayer and asked my friend to leave the area. After he left, I started shooting," he said.

Daqanseh said that the massacre would have been much graver had there not been other teenagers in the area that were more polite. Despite that, it was later revealed that Daqanseh's M-16 rifle jammed, and that was what stopped the killing.

Israel and Jordan have a peace treaty. This is what the peace treaty means.  Why bother?

Shabbat Shalom everyone.

Labels: Islamic terrorism, Jordan

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:31 PM