Shahada claims he did not support armed struggle against Israel: This is what he said in 2021

Balad chairman Sami Abu Shahada claims he never supported armed struggle against Israel, but a 2021 interview reveals a different picture: he refused to call perpetrators of attacks "terrorists," defined them as "freedom prisoners," and avoided condemning the Dolphinarium and Park Hotel attacks.

Balad chairman Sami Abu Shahada claimed Wednesday that he never expressed support for armed struggle against Israel. However, statements he made in a February 2021 interview paint a different picture regarding his attitude toward acts of terrorism and their perpetrators: Abu Shahada flatly refused to call the perpetrators of attacks against Israelis "terrorists," defining them instead as "freedom prisoners or political prisoners." When explicitly asked whether the perpetrators of the Park Hotel and Dolphinarium massacres were terrorists, he refused to answer affirmatively, arguing it was a complex question that "cannot be answered with a yes or no." The interview was conducted on Ben Caspit and Yinon Magal's program on Radio 103FM, while Abu Shahada served as a Knesset member for the Joint List. Abu Shahada harshly attacked Ra'am chairman Mansour Abbas for saying "I do not embrace terrorists," and argued that the "Zionist narrative" must not be adopted. He later turned to the academic definition of terrorism and claimed that Israel itself is "involved in terrorism." The article presents these statements as contradicting Abu Shahada's current claim.