State Dept Claims “No Evidence”
That Arafat Involved in Terror
NEW YORK – “FOR SHAME! U.S. State Department Whitewashes Yasir Arafat’s Bloody Hands” is the headline of a full-page advertisement that has been appearing in leading newspapers in the United States and Israel in recent ads.
The advertisement is sponsored by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). It appeared in the New York Times, New York Sun, Weekly Standard, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, and Jewish weekly newspapers around the United States. A copy of the ad is attached.
The ad focuses on two recent State Department reports concerning terrorism in the Middle East and around the world, which falsely claim there is no evidence of Arafat organizing and financing terrorist attacks; ignore the culture of anti-Jewish hatred in Arafat’s school textbooks, summer camps, and sermons by clergymen; ignore the fact that Arafat and his aides regularly praise terrorists as “heroes”; and refuse to acknowledge the Palestinian Authority’s documented rule in organizing the “Ship of Terror” that attempted to bring fifty tons of Iranian weapons to PA territory earlier this year.
The ad concludes:
“Incredibly, despite Arafat’s terrorism and polls showing 81% of Palestinian Arabs support suicide bombings, the Bush administration has increased America’s annual aid to the Palestinian Arabs from $100-million to $150-million. And the administration is urging the creation of a Palestinian Arab state—which would mean setting up a mini-Iraq terrorist state along Israel’s border. This appeasement tramples President Bush’s own doctrine of ending terrorist states and may increase the likelihood of terrorism against the U.S., for if suicide bombers succeed in Israel, they may strike again in America as well. “Whitewashing Arafat’s terrorism and trying to appease him with U.S. money and the offer of a state will not turn him in to a moderate. It will only send him a message that terrorism reaps financial and diplomatic rewards. “Appeasement didn’t work in the 1930s, and it won’t work now. As Winston Churchill warned, ‘Those who appease the crocodile will be eaten last.’”