A Poem for an Arab Terrorist

A defenseless Jewish woman is surrounded by a group of men with guns. The leader of the group raises a pistol and shoots the woman point-blank, killing her. It was a scene played out a million times and more during the Holocaust.

Except in this case, the year was 1978, the murderer was a 19-year-old Palestinian Arab terrorist named Dalal Mughrabi, and the victim was Gail Rubin, the niece of a U.S. senator. In recent days, the public’s attention has been drawn back to that atrocity by the controversy over Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia university student facing deportation. Mahdawi’s friends say he is against terrorism, but he has a long record of statements praising and admiring terrorists — including a poem he wrote in tribute to Ms. Mughrabi.

One of Mahdawi’s friends posted that poem on Facebook in 2013, and Mahdawi wrote comments expressing appreciation for the posting. The poem included these lines honoring Mughrabi: “I will breathe home … / And fill my shame / And clean my gun / And collect my packages, my bombs / And embrace my gun …”

What, exactly, did Mughrabi do with those “guns and bombs”? She was the leader of a heavily-armed gang of 11 terrorists who came ashore in northern Israel on March 11, 1978. Gail Rubin, an American Jewish nature photographer, happened to be on the beach that afternoon, taking pictures of rare birds. She was a niece of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Conn.). After murdering Gail, Mughrabi and her gang made their way to the nearby Coastal Road.

The terrorists raked passing cars with gunfire, murdering several Israeli children and wounding others. Then they hijacked a bus, forcing it to drive towards Tel Aviv as they leaned out the windows, shooting at motorists. When the bus was forced to stop by a police roadblock, Mughrabi and the others began shooting passengers and setting off grenades. Fire tore through the bus. At one point, according to the courtroom testimony of the survivors, Mughrabi threw a Jewish child into the flames as the other terrorists clapped.

Descriptions of killers hurling Jewish children into fires are found in numerous accounts of the Holocaust. No wonder the Israeli consul-general in New York City characterized Mughrabi and her gang as “a Nazi organization.”

Mughrabi and her comrades murdered 38 Jews that day. Nine of the 11 terrorists, including Mughrabi, were killed in the shootout with the Israeli army. To Israelis, Mughrabi is remembered as a mass murderer. To the Palestinian Authority (PA), however, she is a hero and a martyr. PA chairman Yasser Arafat cited her as a role model in speeches to teenage girls, and declared that Mughrabi “established the first Palestinian republic on that bus.”

The PA has named at least six schools after Mughrabi. When students at one of the schools were interviewed on PA Television, it was clear they knew exactly who their school’s name honors. “My life’s ambition is to reach the level of the Martyr fighter Dalal Mughrabi,” one commented. Another called Mughrabi “a great leader” and emphasized that she was “proud to attend the Dalal Mughrabi school.”

Inside the schools, students learn from textbooks saturated with praise for Mughrabi. The fifth grade Arabic Language book includes this section on the Coastal Road killer: 

Heroes have an important position in every nation. … We are proud of them, sing their praise, learn the history of their lives, name our children after them, and name streets, squares, and prominent cultural sites after them. … Every one of us wishes to be like them. … Who among us has forgotten… Dalal Mughrabi, Yasser Arafat, and others among those moons that never set [but] illuminate the darkness of our dark nights? … They are a symbol of its glory, they are the best of the best, the best of the noble people.” (Translation courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch.)

There are numerous PA sports tournaments named after Mughrabi, including in table tennis, women’s karate, and basketball, as well as a multi-sport festival. In the PA capital of Ramallah, there is a Mughrabi Street as well as a public square named in her honor.

Mughrabi is the subject of adulatory programming on official PA television stations, radio, newspapers and public events held each year on her birthday, and again on the anniversary of the Coastal Road massacre. Commentators refer to her affectionately as “the Princess of Fatah,” “the Bride of Jaffa,” or “the Kernel of Palestine.” 

Because Mughrabi and her gang were members of Fatah, the ruling faction of the PLO and the PA, that movement takes special pride in her. She is featured on a Fatah Facebook page called “Yasser’s Girls” (Mitqy Bnat Al-Yasr, in Arabic), which highlights heroines of Palestinian history.

The younger generation has embraced the message. A children’s program aired on PA Television in 2022 featured three youngsters praising Mughrabi as a “martyr” and excitedly explaining the bus attack. Another PA program that year reported on a painting of Mughrabi in a children’s art exhibit. The artist explained she chose Mughrabi because she “was a fighter who participated in operations [terrorist attacks], a woman who had a role in these struggle and the resolve” and who “died as a Martyr.” The moniker “sister of Dalal” is considered a high compliment in Palestinian Arab society, especially among young girls. That sad fact helps explain why then-U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) called the PA’s policy of educating children to idolize terrorists like Mughrabi  “a clear example of child abuse.”

Mohsen Mahdawi, the Columbia University student at the center of the current controversy, is one of the many Palestinian Arab children who grew up idolizing Dalal Mughrabi. Born and raised in the PA town of Al Far’a, he attended PA schools, watched PA Television, and absorbed its messages like everyone else. Mahdawi wrote his poem honoring Mughrabi when he was a 23 year-0ld college student.

For the past 11 years, however, Mahdawi has been living in the United States, where terrorists are reviled, not celebrated. That has given him a lot of time to reconsider his views. Sadly, Mahdawi’s response to Oct. 7 was to publicly defend Hamas and lead pro-Hamas rallies at Columbia University. Evidently the sentiments he expressed in his poem honoring Dalal Mughrabi continue to represent his moral compass.