German foreign ministry slams Palestinian Mission for support of PFLP terror
The Palestinian Mission eventually deleted the pro-PFLP Facebook post.
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALUpdated: DECEMBER 26, 2018 04:40Chancellor Angela Merkel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrive for a news conference at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, April 19, 2016.(photo credit: REUTERS)
In a highly unusual rebuke of the Palestinian Mission in Berlin on Tuesday, Germany's foreign ministry blasted the Mission for glorifying terrorism.The Palestinian Mission posted on its Facebook page an illustration of convicted Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist Leila Khaled, with the statement: “Resistance is not terrorism.”“We have made it clear to the Palestinian Mission that we need clarification on the Facebook post, and the glorification of terrorism and a glorification of Lufthansa kidnapper Leila Khaled are completely unacceptable,” a spokesperson for the ministry wrote to The Jerusalem Post.The mission eventually deleted the pro-PFLP Facebook post.A Post press query to the Palestinian Mission in Berlin was not immediately returned.Bild reporter Filipp Piatov first broke the story on Monday about the Palestinian Mission in Berlin promoting Khaled from the PFLP terrorist organization.The EU and the US both classify the PFLP as a terrorist entity. The Palestinian Mission uses a Berlin Sparkasse bank account. It is unclear if the bank plans to terminate the account due to possible issues of terror finance.The Post reported in September that Sparkasse in the city of Witten closed the account of the International Alliance – an organization that sympathizes with PFLP terrorist organizations and supports boycotting Israel. PayPal, the giant online payment service, closed its account with the International Alliance after the Sparkasse closure. Deutsche Bank and Postbank shut accounts with the Marxist Leninist Party of Germany because the party has allegedly campaigned with supporters of the PFLP.After the Post exposed Khaled’s pro-BDS talk at Vienna’s Austrian-Arab cultural center in April 2016, the Austrian financial giant Bawag closed the center’s bank account in June.Khaled has said that Palestinians have established “that negotiations will be held only with knives and weapons.”
She was a key member of the terrorist cell that hijacked TWA Flight 840 in 1969. A year later, she participated in the attempted hijacking of EL AL Flight 219.
