Terrorist hedersmedborgare i fransk stad

Majdi al-Rimawi, dömd för mordet på den israeliska ministern Rechavam Zeevi 2001, har blivit hedersmedborgare i staden Bezons utanför Paris.
Borgmästaren i Bezons, Dominique Lesparre, talade om  al-Rimawi som ett "offer" och kallade honom  "politisk fånge" vid en ceremoni för att hedra honom.

Efter att utnämningen blivit känd har många protesterat, men borgmästaren Lesparre har försvarat utnämningen och anklagar istället kritikerna för deras "hatfulla" inställning.

French city grants honorary citizenshipto murderer of Israeli minister (PMW)
PA TV host: "The French city of Bezons awarded honorary citizenship to the prisoner Majdi al-Rimawi from the village Bani Zeid Al-Gharbiyya. This title and award were given during an official ceremony held in France, to which the wife of the prisoner, Fathiya al-Rimawi, was invited... Prisoner Majdi al-Rimawi, of course, has been jailed in the occupation's (i.e., Israeli) prisons for 11 years and is sentenced to life imprisonment plus 50 years (80 years, -Ed.)"

"The Mayor of the city of Bezons, Dominique Lesparre, made a speech at the ceremony in which he justified the acts of the terrorist convicted of murder, calling him a "victim." He also defended all 4,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons as "Palestinian resistance." The transcript of his speech was posted on his blog:

Dominique Lesparre, Mayor of Bezons: "Majdi is a direct victim of this occupation... As are the 4,500 Palestinian resistance [fighters] who were imprisoned for having dared to defend their country against an occupier whose military means are oversized and whose methods constantly violate UN resolutions and international law."

French town honors killer of Israeli minister (Jerusalem Post)
 "Bezons awarded the title last month to Majdi Al-Rimawi, according to the March edition of its official newsletter, Bezons Infos. The motion to recognize Rimawi passed unanimously at a special council vote of the municipality, which is northwest of Paris and nearly eight miles from the city's center.
“He is imprisoned for more than 10 years in an Israeli prison. His crime? Defending his city and its inhabitants, calling for the application of international law for the establishment of Palestine in the 1967 borders as recognized by the United Nations and Jerusalem as its capital. For this he was sentenced in 2002 [sic] to life in prison… More than 80 years!” proclaims the newsletter article.

The article does not mention the 2008 conviction of Rimawi, a member of the terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, for the murder of Ze’evi in Jerusalem in 2001. Rimawi was one of four shooters who waited for Ze’evi, Israel's minister of tourism, outside a hotel in Jerusalem."