Son of terror victim asks Scouts to cut Palestinian branch
The son of an American man killed in an October 2015 Jerusalem terrorist attack has called on the world scouting organization to drop the membership of the Palestinian branch, which has glorified his father’s killer.
The Palestinian Scout Association, which was accepted six months ago as full member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, named its leadership training course that started last week after the killer of Richard Lakin.
Publicity for the Martyr – Leader Baha Alyan Course shows Alyan in a Palestinian Scouts uniform. The Palestinian branch had been a non-voting conditional member of the world body for 10 years.
“Should you allow the Palestinian Scout Association to keep its membership in the World Organization of the Scout Movement at the same time as they are presenting a murderer as a role model for future scout leaders, then your organization is effectively a co-sponsor of this terrorism-promoting course,” Micah Lakin Avni wrote to the world scouting organization.
Richard Lakin and two others were killed in a stabbing and shooting spree aboard a Jerusalem bus by Alyan and an accomplice. Lakin moved to Israel from Connecticut in 1983 and held dual American and Israeli citizenship. More than 10 people were wounded in the attack. Alyan was killed and his accomplice Balal Abu Gaanam was captured and sentenced to three life sentences.
“As long as Palestinian leaders nurture a culture of hate, encouraging school children to go out and kill, more violence is inevitable,” Lakin Avni also wrote to the scouting group. “By encouraging hatred, they distance all of us from the love of and belief in peaceful coexistence for which my father stood.”
The watchdog website Palestinian Media Watch first highlighted the Palestinian Scouts leadership course. It also called on the World Organization of the Scout Movement to cancel the membership of the Palestinian Scout Association.
Lakin was a former principal at Hopewell Elementary School in Glastonbury, Connecticut.
“He was 76 years old, and had eight grandchildren,” one of his sons wrote at the time. “He was butchered by Muslim terrorists who shot him in the head and stabbed him multiple times during an attack on a 78 bus in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood.”
The Facebook post went on to celebrate Lakin’s legacy of decency.
“Dad was a kind, gentle loving person whose legacy is ‘acts of kindness,’” it continued. “Dad’s basic views as expressed on his website were: ‘Every child is a miracle,’ ‘kindness and positivism are contagious,’ ‘empowerment frees people to realize their potential,’ ‘parenting and teaching are acts of love,’ and ‘schools must be caring learning communities.’”
JTA and Daniel K. Eisenbud contributed to this report.