September 8, 1997
PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat has made the outrageous accusation
that the Arab bombers who murdered 4 Jews and injured 192 on Ben-Yehuda
Street in Jerusalem “were assisted by Israeli extremist elements” (Yediot Ahronot,
September 6, 1997) The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is calling on
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to “specifically demand that Arafat
retract and discontinue this kind of anti-Israel propaganda,” at her
forthcoming meeting with Arafat.”
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “Yasir Arafat seems to
have learned well from other dictators, who understood that the bigger the
lie, and the more frequently it is repeated, the more people will believe it.
The Clinton administration must insist that Arafat retract and discontinue this
kind of anti-Israel propaganda.”
Other anti-Israel fabrications that Arafat and the PLO have
circulated include:
-
A program broadcast on PLO Television in June 1997 featured
Palestinian Arab historian Jarid al-Kidwa, who claimed that “all the events
surrounding Kings Saul, David and Rehoboam occurred in Yemen, and no Hebrew
remnants were found in Israel, for a very simple reason–because they were
never here.” Al-Kidwa said: “Most of the Khazars are the Ashkenazic Jews who arrived
in Palestine. As Allah is my witness, in my blood flows more of the Children
of Israel and the ancient Hebrews than in the blood of Ariel Sharon and
Benjamin Netanyahu.” According to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz (July 6, 1997), al-
Kidwa also said: “The stories of the Torah and the Bible did not take place in
the Land of Israel–they occurred in the Arabian peninsula, primarily in Yemen.The identity of our father Ibrahim who is mentioned
in the Koran is clear. From the Koran’s description
of him it arises that he lived in the southern Hejaz , near
Mecca.” -
Abdel Hamid al-Qudsi, Deputy Minister of the PLO’s Palestinian
Authority Ministry of Supplies, declared: “Israel is distributing food
containing material that causes cancer and hormones that harm male virility
and other spoiled food products in the Palestinian Authority’s territories in
order to poison and harm the Palestinian population. We absolutely feel that it
is an organized plan and conspiracy which is under the auspices of the Israel
Defense Forces this is a planned and initiated war against the Palestinian
people.” (Yediot Ahronot, June 25, 1997) -
A Palestinian Arab prisoner who claimed to be a Shin Bet agent was
presented at a press conference organized by the PLO police in Gaza on May
4, 1997. The prisoner, Ibrahim Halabi, claimed that the Shin Bet recruited
him to carry out two recent attacks on Israeli school buses in Gaza, and gave him
the explosives. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman said the
allegation was “a fabrication,” (N.Y. Times, May 5, 1997) -
“Allow me to remind you here of what the Israeli government is
intent upon doing–and that is digging a tunnel under the western wall of
Al Aqsa mosque.” (Yasir Arafat, speech to the Organization of the Islamic
Conference, in Islamabad, Pakistan, March 23, 1997) -
“The Israeli authorities infected by injection 300 Palestinian
children with the HIV virus during the years of the intifada.” (Nabil
Ramlawi, the PLO representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Jerusalem Post,
March 17, 1997) -
“Jerusalem is not a Jewish city, despite the biblical myth implanted
in some minds…There is no tangible evidence of Jewish existence from the
so-called ‘Temple Mount Era’…The location of the Temple Mount is in
question…it might be in Jericho or somewhere else.” (Walid M. Awad,
Director of Foreign Publications for the PLO’s Palestine Ministry of Information,
interviewed by the IMRA news agency, Dec.25, 1996.) -
“Abraham was neither Jewish nor a Hebrew, but was simply an Iraqi.
The Jews have no right to claim part of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in
Hebron, Abraham’s resting place, as a synagogue. Rather, the whole building should
be a mosque.” (Yasir Arafat, quoted in the Jerusalem Report, Dec. 26, 1996) -
“The Palestinian Authority is now claiming that Rachel’s Tomb in
Bethlehem is the traditional tomb of the Cushite servant of Mohammed.”
(Ha’aretz, Oct.9, 1996) -
“That is not the Western Wall at all, but a Moslem shrine.”
(Yasir Arafat, quoted in Ma’ariv, Oct. 11, 1996) -
Regarding weapons in the hands of Arab terrorists, Arafat said,
“These weapons could be obtained only from high authorities
with great influence on the Israeli side.” (Jerusalem Post, March 22, 1996) -
“An unholy conspiracy of Israeli ‘fanatics’, who are members of a
shadowy group of ex-IDF people called ‘OAS’, and Moslem extremists were
behind suicide bombings, PalestinianAuthority President Yasser
Arafat told foreign diplomats…Arafat is known to have said last year, before
Barak became foreign minister, that ‘Barak is one of the big
bosses of the OAS’…” (Jerusalem Post, Feb.27, 1996) -
“The people of Israel realize perfectly well that they have no
temples or ruins near Al Aqsa Mosque. According to the Koran, the people
of Israel lived somewhere to the west of Bethlehem…they were living in
Bethlehem and not in Jerusalem.” (Sheikh Ismail Jamal, the PLO’s Director of the
Islamic Wakf in Jericho, quoted in the Chicago Jewish Sentinel, May 18, 1995) -
Referring to the Arab terrorist attack in Beit Lid, in which 22
Israelis were killed, and other attacks in 1995, Arafat said, “I have
evidences that these terrorist activities have been done through coordination between
these fanatic Islamic groups and some elements on the Israeli side.”
(Washington Post, May 2, 1995) -
Arafat once “convened a conference of the international press to
claim that an imprint of an ancient Judean coin on the Israeli 10-agorot
coin was Israel’s imperialistic expansion map. This coin, he said, shows that
Israel plans to conquer Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and parts of Egypt and Saudi
Arabia.” (Jerusalem Post, Feb. 22, 1995) -
“PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, in interviews published yesterday,
accused IDF troops of aiding the spread of arms in the territories in a
plot to create chaos in Palestinian self-rule areas…’This weapons trade is being
carried out under the auspices of some Israeli officers in the West Bank
and Gaza. This is part of a wicked plan’…” (Jerusalem Post, Feb. 18 & Feb.
19, 1994) -
“Israel has been using chemical weapons against Palestinians in the
territories for 27 months with the support of the U.S. It’s not tear gas,
it’s chemical weapons.” (Yasir Arafat, Jerusalem Post, April 1, 1990)
