September 24, 1997
The revelation that the perpetrators of the Jerusalem
bombings found shelter in a PLO open-door “jail” proves that the PLO’s
alleged imprisonment of terrorists is a fraud, the Zionist Organization of America
(ZOA) said.
The Israeli government revealed that four of the five terrorist who
carried out the recent Jerusalem bombings, in which 20 Jews were murdered,
came from an Arab village near the PLO-controlled city of Nablus. According to
the Associated Press (Sept.23, 1997), after a previous wave of Hamas bombings
in 1996, “the four knew they were wanted by Israel and felt they would be
safer in Palestinian custody.” At their own request, they were “imprisoned” in the
PLO’s jail in Nablus.
The Associated Press quoted a PLO security official as saying that
“security was lax and inmates often were allowed to spend several hours a
day in town.” In September 1996, “the four did not return from such an
outing.”
Israel included the names of all four on a list of 88 wanted terrorists
that it gave to the PLO, the PLO failed to arrest them. If the PLO had
arrested them, they would not have been able to carry out the Jerusalem
massacres.
Just last week (Sept.15, 1997), Associated Press correspondent
Laura King visited the PLO’s Jneid Prison, in Nablus, and found extraordinarily
lax conditions:
“The prison’s door was wide open. So was the barred
door leading to the small cellblock. So was each cell door.
Mingling with their captors or chatting among
themselves were 15 members of the Islamic group Hamas,
spending another day in Palestinian custody
rounded by recently by Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority
in response to Israeli and U.S. demands that he crack down
on Islamic militants who have staged terrorist attacks.
Yesterday, however, security at Jneid was so casual
that journalists strolled unescorted through the main
entrance and walked straight into the common area where
Hamas detainees were wandering about outside their cells,
smoking and talking.
The Hamas detainees said they had been told their
detention was temporary, and mean to shield them from
covert Israeli action.”
In a related development, the New York Times (on Aug. 22, 1997)
quoted the Israeli government spokesman as revealing that “Rather than arrest the
militants named on lists provided by Israel, the Palestinian Authority
appears in some cases to have provided them with bodyguards to protect them from a
possible Israeli snatch.”
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “Instead of arresting,
jailing, and prosecuting terrorists, Arafat supports and promotes
terrorists by giving them shelter in phony ‘prisons’ that resemble hotels. This is
exactly the opposite of the promise Arafat made to Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright to crack down on terrorists. The Clinton administration should
strongly protest Arafat’s pro-terrorist behavior and suspend all U.S. aid
to the Palestinian Arabs until Arafat takes serious action against the
terrorists, including outlawing and disarming terrorist groups; shutting down their
training camps; honoring Israel’s requests for the extradition of 36
terrorists; and surrendering to the U.S. those terrorists who took part in
the murders of American citizens.”
