Jewish terror victim is remembered, thanks to the killers' friends

(JNS)—Like most victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism, Avraham Bromberg would have been completely forgotten if not for the persistence of the murderer’s many admirers and financial sponsors.

Bromberg was just 20 years old when he was murdered. The same age as my daughter, Alisa, when she was murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists in 1995. Avraham was hitchhiking. In those days, all young Israelis hitchhiked. Nobody thought of it as a potentially lethal activity.

A car with Israeli license plates stopped to give him a ride. The driver and his front-seat passenger were Israeli Arabs. Avraham might have noticed that they were Arabs. But so what? After all, most Israeli Arabs aren’t terrorists. But these two were.

Karim Younes and his cousin, Maher Younes, kidnapped Avraham Bromberg, shot him in the head and threw him into a roadside ditch. Several days later, he died from his wounds. The Younes cousins were caught, convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

That would have been the end of the story, as far as the Jewish public is concerned. Some older Israelis might still remember his name. But the number of American Jews who remember Avraham Bromberg can be counted on one hand. And the number of American Jewish or Zionist organizations that have mentioned Bromberg’s name in one of their fire-and-brimstone press releases is zero.

So, Avraham Bromberg would be gone and utterly forgotten if not, ironically, for the Palestinian Authority. Yes, the P.A. regime that is bound by the Oslo Accords to reject terrorism, to disarm and extradite terrorists, to shut them down and outlaw them and imprison them—but instead honors them, praises them and finances them.

The Jews may have forgotten Avraham Bromberg. But the Palestinians have not forgotten his murderers.

Palestinian Media Watch reports that last week, a ceremony honoring Karim Younes was held at the Palestinian Ministry of Education. That’s right, at the Ministry of Education. Not in some private residence. Not out in the forest. But front and center in the very seat of the Palestinian government.

And who led the ceremony? Not some clerk or secretary or fringe figure, but rather, the Minister of Education himself, Sabri Saidam. As Karim Younes’s mother smiled approvingly, the minister called the gathering “a gesture of loyalty to prisoner Younes and his family.”

Saidam added that he was “conveying the greetings of the Palestinian leadership and the Fatah Central Committee members” to the Younes family. Fatah is chaired by P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas, by the way.

The ceremony was held at something called “the Martyr Yasser Arafat Auditorium.” And Saidam presented the mother of the murderer with a plaque featuring a photo of Arafat. I suppose it was fitting that an event honoring a murderer should be so closely tied to the memory of one of the most notorious mass murderers of the 20th century.

Minister Saidam hailed the murderer Younes as one of “the symbols who have defended the national enterprise.” The ceremony was featured prominently in the official P.A. daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida.

A few days earlier, a P.A. university awarded Karim Younes an honorary certificate, and a program broadcast on the P.A.’s official television station showed posters glorifying him and presented fawning interviews with the killers’ family members. And last year, Abbas appointed the imprisoned Karim Younes to serve on the Fatah Central Committee.

Not that the other killer, Maher Younes, has been neglected. Not at all! Last year, the P.A. named a plaza after him in the city of Tulkarm. At the naming ceremony—complete with a live band and a march by Palestinian Boy Scouts—the murderer’s mother cut the inaugural ribbon, and P.A. official Isam Abu Bakr declared: “We are proud of this great man, this fighter, this leader.”

How has all this despicable glorification of murderers kept Avraham Bromberg’s name from being forgotten? Simple. Every Israeli or foreign news media report about the P.A. honoring the Younes’ cousins has mentioned the name of their victim.

And so, in a bitter and ironic twist, American Jewish and Zionist leaders may have forgotten Avraham Bromberg, but the actions of his murderers and their cheerleaders have forced his name back into the news—and back into our too-short memories.

Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. His book, “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror,” has just been published.