Palestinian leaders celebrate murder of young American visiting Israel

By Mark Ellis, Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

ISRAEL (ANS - March 14, 2016) -- Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA) celebrated the murder of 28-year-old Taylor Force, an American tourist visiting Israel with Vanderbilt University.

In a gruesome display of misplaced bravado, Fatah’s official Facebook page posted a drawing of a knife held over a map of “Palestine” that includes all of Israel and the PA areas to commemorate three attacks that took place March 8th.

In one of the attacks, Palestinian terrorist Bashar Masalha ran through the streets of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, stabbing every civilian he passed, killing Force and injuring 11 in the gruesome, 20-minute attack.

Force was walking on a boardwalk when the 22-year-old terrorist stabbed him, part of a spree that apparently targeted civilians at random. No one else from Vanderbilt was injured.

Force was in Israel to study entrepreneurship with his Vanderbilt business school classmates as part of his MBA program. He was the only victim killed.

In high school, Force became an Eagle Scout before he turned 18. The descendent of several generations of soldiers, he went on to graduate from West Point. At West Point, he received his bachelor’s degree in engineering and industrial management and was also a member of the ski team, according to LinkedIn.

He served his country with distinction in Afghanistan and Iraq, and made it back from the hostilities without any personal scars, according to Fox News.

“He was such a hard worker, an Eagle Scout, and loved by everybody,” his father, Stuart Force, told Everything Lubbock.

On the Vanderbilt trip to Israel, there were 29 other students and four staff members.

“This horrific act of violence has robbed our Vanderbilt family of a young hopeful life and all of the bright promise that he held for bettering our greater world,” Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos wrote in a statement.

Official Palestinian Authority TV reports described Force and the other victims as “settlers.” The PA often calls all Israeli cities – “occupied” – and all Israelis – “settlers” – a category of people they have claimed that international law gives them the right to murder, according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).

By calling the American a “settler” — even though he is not Israeli, the TV news attempted to shift the blame to the victim, PMW reported.

Photo captions: 1) Taylor at West Point. 2) Murder weapon used at the bloody scene. 3) Mark Ellis and Dan Wooding on the "Windows on the World" TV show.

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About the writer: Mark Ellis is senior correspondent for the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net), and also founder of www.GodReports.com, a website that shares stories, testimonies and videos from the church around the world. He is also co-host for "Windows on the World" with ANS founder, Dan Wooding, on the Holy Spirit Broadcasting Network (http://hsbn.tv).

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