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MEMRI Daily: November 8, 2011

The following is research published today from MEMRI’s Inquiry & Analysis and Special Dispatch Series. 11 Years After Al-Aqsa Intifada, Al-Qassam Brigades Take Stock, Take Pride In Suicide Bombings Turkish Columnist on PM Erdogan's Hypocrisy: Why Does He Continue To Insist That the PKK Is Terrorist But Hamas Are Freedom Fighters? Inquiry & Analysis No. 756 - Palestinians/Hamas/Jihad & Terrorism Studies Project 11 Years After Al-Aqsa Intifada, Al-Qassam Brigades Take Stock, Take Pride In Suicide Bombings To mark the 11th anniversary of the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the website of the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, launched a special page titled "The Al-Aqsa Intifada – A Shining Light in the History of Palestine." The page features a document with information on the Brigades' military operations, including statistics of Israeli and their own casualties. In the document, the Brigades also proudly present the suicide attacks that they carried out, including the 2002 Passover massacre at the Park Hotel in Netanya, in which 30 Israelis were killed, and the June 2001 suicide bombing outside the Dolphi discothèque in Tel Aviv, in which 21 Israelis, most of them teenagers, were killed. Also mentioned are the 2008 Mercaz HaRav shooting, in which eight yeshiva students were killed, and the April 2011 rocket attack on an Israeli school bus on the Gaza border, which caused the death of an Israeli teenager. The document concludes with a pledge to continue in the path of jihad until all the lands of Palestine are liberated. To read the full report, visit http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5786.htm. Special Dispatch No. 4259–Turkey/Jihad and Terrorism Studies Project/Hamas/Democratization and Reform in the Arab & Muslim World Turkish Columnist on PM Erdogan's Hypocrisy: Why Does He Continue To Insist That the PKK Is Terrorist But Hamas Are Freedom Fighters? In a two-part column titled "Recalling Terrorists and 'Lesser Terrorists,'" published October 25 and October 27, 2011 in the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News, Turkish columnist Burak Bekdil, referring to a column he wrote five years ago when Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, discussed the hypocrisy of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on "terrorism" – with one standard for the PKK and another for Hamas. Noting that Erdogan has consistently defined the PKK as "terrorist" and Hamas as a "freedom fighter," Bekdil said that he would "keep on reminding the prime minister and the foreign minister that if [Palestinian prisoners released in exchange deals] are not terrorists, no PKK member could or should be considered a terrorist." To read the full report, visit http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5785.htm.