Tuesday, June 15, 2004 1:59 p.m. EDT
Heinz Kerry-Funded Web Site Praises Hezbollah
A Web site partially funded by Teresa Heinz Kerry offers a report glorifying Hezbollah (Hizbullah) suicide bombers as "deified in paradise and venerated on earth for fighting Israel" - and praises the terrorist group's support network for women widowed by their husband's "martyrdom" attacks.
Women's eNews.org still features the September 2003 report, written by Sarah Smiles, who's identified as a "WeNews correspondent."
Smiles interviewed a number of Lebanese women who were widowed after their husbands decided to join in the cause of killing Israelis and Americans.
At the end of her screed, the Web site notes:
"Women's eNews is supported by our readers; reprints and licensing fees; and the Fund for the City of New York, the Teresa and H. John Heinz III fund of the Heinz Family Foundations, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, The Helena Rubinstein Foundation, the Sister Fund, the Starry Night Fund."
First noted yesterday by OpinionJournal.com, the Heinz Kerry-funded report reads like a recruiting brochure for suicide bombers. Here are some highlights:
"Hizbullah has built up an impenetrable support network for the women. Through the Hizbullah martyrs' wives association some 2500 families in Lebanon receive a monthly salary, free health care and schooling for their children – to the tune of $1,200 each a month.
"'We do everything in our power to make them feel they are not missing anything,' says Mohsan Shaheen, a spokesperson for the association. 'Anything a martyr's wife wants, we will give it to her, basically, because her husband sacrificed himself. The only thing we can't provide for her is to bring him back.'
"On top of sending their children to the best schools and universities abroad if they choose, the association runs vocational training classes and seminars for the woman and offers a dating service to help them remarry if they wish. ..."
Comments from Hezbollah suicide widows:
"A staunch, pious woman veiled completely in black, Naji shows little regret about her ultimately fateful marriage.
"'When I married him, I knew he followed the party. I knew I had a martyr at home,' she says. Leaning closer, she confesses her ambitions for her sons, the youngest of whom was a nursling when Aboud died.
"'When my sons tell me: "I hope to become a martyr one day," I say: "I hope so too. I hope God chooses you as a martyr.'"
"'Although a mother doesn't need to tell the son of a martyr to do it,' she says, 'she may guide him towards it, but really, it's innate. He automatically has a feeling that he must follow his father.' ...
"Pregnant when her husband Ahmed Fadlallah was killed in a Hizbullah operation in 1999, Zoorgoof has struggled to come to terms with the loss.
"'I tell my daughter: "your father is a hero." I take her to his grave. But this feeling of loneliness and despair ...' she says, her voice growing distant.
"Since Fadlallah's death, Zoorgoof has relied heavily on the Hizbullah martyrs' wives association, which is helping her buy a house and pays for her to go to university, where she is studying Arabic literature.
"'Hizbullah is like a family. It takes care of us, provides for us,' she says."
