Thursday, October 15, 2015

PLO issues revised English version of Abbas' controversial 'execution' speech

No explanation is given as to why the revised English version is different from the Arabic.
(JPost) The Palestine Liberation Organization on Thursday released a different version of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech, which was broadcast on Palestine TV on Wednesday night.

The new English version quotes Abbas as talking about the “shooting of our children in cold blood as they did with the child Ahmed Mansara and other children from Jerusalem.”

The modified English version was released by the PLO’s Negotiations Affairs Department, which said this was a “full translation” of Abbas’s speech.

However, the Arabic version of Abbas’s speech does not talk about “shooting.” Instead, Abbas is quoted as talking about the “execution of our children in cold blood, as they did with the boy Ahmed Manasrah and other children in Jerusalem and other places.”

PLO officials did not offer any explanation as to why they chose to change Abbas’s statement about Manasrah.

The explanation is very simple: 'Dead' 13-year-old terrorist alive and well

Ahmed Mansra in the hospital
(Ynet) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Arab media have been claiming since Monday that 13-year-old Ahmed Manasra, who was documented committing a terror attack in Pisgat Ze'ev this week, has been "executed" by Israel.

Except that Dr. Asher Salmon, the deputy director of the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem's Ein Karem, said Thursday that the boy is alive, and is in light-to-moderate condition.

Photos of Mansra from the hospital were released to support those statements.

"I want to report on the situation of the Palestinian teen who was involved in the stabbing in Pisgat Ze'ev," Dr. Salmon said. "He's being properly treated. Medically, I believe we could discharge him in the next few days."

A Jewish 13-year-old boy and a 21-year-old were seriously wounded in the attack perpetrated by Mansra and another, 15-year-old, Palestinian teen.

Shortly after the attack, a video of the neutralized Manasra bleeding on the ground went viral online.

Arab media and Palestinian social media pages claimed the video shows that the Israelis executed an innocent boy.

In a speech he made on Wednesday evening, Abbas insisted that the Palestinians would not surrender to the "Israeli aggression" against the Palestinian people, their holy places, homes, and the "executions of children like Ahmed Manasra."

In an English translation of Abbas' speech released by the PLO, however, the Palestinian president is quoted as saying Israel "shoots" Palestinian children in cold blood "as they did with the child Ahmed Manasra," replacing the word "executions" with a more moderate language.

But while Manasra's cousin Hassan was shot to death, Ahmed was not shot - he was hit in the head with clubs, suffering a serious head injury.

The translation was released before the publication of the photos showing Manasra alive.

Security footage from the scene of the attack, however, shows Mansra and his cousin Hassan stabbing passersby.