Zionist Organization of America Press release, January 22, 2001
The chief of Yasir Arafat’s Security Forces has publicly
vowed that he will not re-arrest the hundreds of senior terrorists who were
recently freed from Palestinian Authority prisons, including six notorious
killers of American citizens. The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is
urging President Bush to take action against Arafat’s mass release of
killers.
Responding to the Barak government’s request that the PA re-arrest
the terrorists it has set free, PA Security Chief Jibril Rajoub told the
London-based newspaper Al Hayat (quoted in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz,
Jan. 22, 2001):
“We won’t arrest those that Israel wants us to arrest, and
we won’t take any action against them.”
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “Arafat’s refusal to
arrest mass murderers – including murderers of American citizens – presents
a challenge to the new Bush administration. We urge President Bush to
speak out strongly against Arafat’s action, and to use all means at his
disposal – including cutting all U.S. aid to the Palestinian Arabs – to
persuade Arafat to arrest the terrorists and hand over to America those
involved in attacks against Americans.”
Speaking on Arafat’s official Palestine Television on November 6,
2000, PA police chief Ghazi Jabali “confirmed that most wanted terrorist
Mohammed Dief is free.” (According to both the U.S. and Israeli
governments, Dief is responsible for the deaths of at least five
Americans.)
Jabali said that “not even one” of the fugitive terrorists
wanted by Israel is still in PA prisons. He also denied rumors that some
recently-released Hamas terrorists had been re-arrested. (Jerusalem Post,
Nov.7, 2000)
A front-page investigative report by the Washington Post (Oct. 25,
2000) revealed that Arafat had set free “as many as 250” terrorists and
established a “working alliance” with the freed terrorists. The Post quoted
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak as saying that Arafat’s release of the
terrorists from jail “is the equivalent of a green light to terror. It
makes Arafat, not Hamas or Islamic Jihad, responsible for the following
terrorist attacks that might easily come.”
The Israeli Army spokesman officially confirmed on October 25,
2000, that the terrorists who were recently released by Arafat included six
terrorists involved in attacks in which 10 American citizens were murdered
and many others injured. (Since September 1993, a total of 16 American
citizens have been murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists; Israel has
identified, by name, 23 suspects in these attacks. They are being
sheltered by Arafat’s regime.)
