Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction on Tuesday decided to remind its followers of the deep friendship between former Fatah head and terrorist Yasser Arafat, and Iraqi president and dictator Saddam Hussein.

A picture of Arafat and Hussein warmly shaking hands was posted on the faction’s official Facebook page, reports Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), expressing the group’s close affinity with the autocratic ruler.

PMW translated the accompanying text, which reads “an image from the memory of the revolution: President Commander Yasser Arafat with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during the summit conference of the non-aligned countries in Cuba in 1978.”

This is far from the first time that the PA and Fatah honored Hussein, who was convicted by an Iraqi court of crimes against humanity for acts against his own people and executed in 2006.

Speaking for Abbas last year, the PA’s Jenin district government Talal Dweikat commemorated Hussein as a “great leader and fighter,” at a ceremony celebrating the anniversary of the establishment of the Arab-Iraqi army.

Fatah glorified Hussein in late 2012, posting the following picture with the caption “he smiled to deny the enemy the pleasure of victory. May Allah have mercy on you, Saddam Hussein.”

In another Fatah post, Hussein is shown in uniform with a rifle in hand, accompanied by the words: “today, December 30, 2012, is the sixth anniversary of the death of the hawk of the Arabs and the lion of the Tigris and Euphrates: As we walked we knew that the gallows were in fact the ladder of faith for the glorified Field Marshal martyr President Saddam Hussein.”