The Zionist Organization of America News Release, October 12, 2001
Yasir Arafat’s Fatah movement has justified the terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center and Pentagon as a response to “U.S. oppression,” and Arafat’s
news agency has pointed out what it regards as the benefits resulting from the
attacks.
A statement by Yasir Arafat’s Fatah movement on October 1, 2001 asserted that
“The massive operation showed the
failure of the U.S. to protect itself when those it oppressed reacted to the
policies of hegemony and discrimination it has been practicing throughout the
world…The U.S. is now reaping what it has sown, especially the mass killings it
committed for no reason.”
Arafat’s official news agency, WAFA, stated on October 11, 2001
that as a result of the attacks
“we can estimate the USA has realized that it should reconcile with the
world rather than fight it.” Also as a result, “Israel was excluded from the
international coalition…the world before the 11th of September is not the same
like after that date…Maybe from that date on, AIPAC won’t be able to rule the
USA, or will not attempt to, they certainly will not dare to expose the USA to
any further sabotage action.”
The WAFA statement also said that if Israel were included in the coalition, “it
will sabotage and destroy this coalition, because of its ideology of ‘God’s
chosen people’, and its social and educational structure will destroy the
coalition.”
Morton A. Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of America
(ZOA) said:
“Thousands of Palestinian Arabs publicly celebrated the mass murder of
Americans, thousands more held rallies denouncing the U.S. military action
against Bin Laden; Arafat’s official media justify Bin Laden’s terrorism; a Bin
Laden cell is operating in Arafat-ruled Gaza, and Bin Laden’s close ally,
Hezbollah, is also operating freely in Arafat’s territory. It’s time for the Bush
administration to recognize that Arafat’s PA is a hostile regime and stop
sending $100-million in American taxpayers’ money to the Palestinian Arabs.”
Previous Palestinian Arab statements regarding Bin Laden:PA Official:
“Don’t Join U.S. Coalition”:
The PA-appointed chief Muslim religious official in Jerusalem, Sheikh
Ikrimah Sabri, declared in his September 28, 2001 sermon (which was
broadcast on official PA radio): “It is forbidden for a Muslim to go against
another Muslim…This killing is regarded as a severe sin…We call upon America:
No to war, no to the killing of innocents, no to the killing of elderly women and
children, no to guardianship, no to intervention in
other peoples’ issues, no to imperialism, no to occupation.”
(Translation courtesy of the Middle East Media Research Institute)
PA Media: “Israel Carried Out the Attacks”:
Trying to absolve Bin Laden of blame for the September 11 attacks, the
PA’s official radio station, Voice of Palestine, reported on October 7, 2001, that
“the FBI has handed a report to the Palestine National Authority which states
that the Israeli Mossad is responsible for the September 11 terror attacks in the
U.S. The FBI report states that U.S. law enforcement officials have nabbed
three cadres of Mossad operatives in New York in connection with the
September 11 attacks.”
(Translation courtesy of Israel Resource News Agency.)
PA Newspaper: “America is Not the master”: An editorial in the PA newspaper
Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah on October 3, 2001 and was signed by the newspaper’s
editor, Hafez Barghouti, asserted:
“Three weeks after the ‘earthquake’, the Americans had to revise their
thinking on many issues, perhaps the most important of which is its foreign
policy that regarded others from an exaggerated sense of superiority, which
caused it not to see things clearly. The earthquake forced the Americans to get
down out of their ivory tower and take a realistic look at what is happening on
the planet. They view themselves as its master, but actually they have
discovered that there has been a huge build-up of hatred against them.”
(Translation courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch)
Arafat Aide: “U.S.Worse Than Bin Laden”: In a statement published in the PA
newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah on Sept. 14, 2001, the Director-General of the
PA Ministry of Information, Hassan Al-Kashef, equated the attacks in New York
and Washington with what he called
“the American killing of Arabs in Iraq” and elsewhere: “If the airplanes’
blasting into the World Trade Center towers in New York is considered terror
carried out by a few individuals, the murder of Arabs by Israel and by American
weapons and all the American killings of Arabs in Iraq, in the Sudan, and in
Libya is official terror, and those responsible are the U.S. and Israel. These are
war crimes; these are crimes of mass destruction.”
(Translation courtesy of the Middle East Media Research Institute)
Palestinian Arabs Celebrate Terror Attacks:
The Associated Press reported (Sept. 11, 2001) that
“thousands of Palestinians celebrated Tuesday’s terror attacks” by
singing and dancing in the streets, honking horns, distributing candy to
passersby, and firing their guns in the air in Nablus (Shechem); reported similar
celebrations in Arab sections of Jerusalem and Palestinian Arab refugee camps
in Lebanon. PA police officers joined in the celebrations in Nablus and Ramallah,
Israel Radio reported.
Palestinian Arabs Support Bin Laden:
* On October 8-9, 2001, thousands of Palestinian Arabs held rallies in Gaza to
praise Bin Laden and denounce America’s anti-terror actions in Afghanistan.
* The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported (September 17, 2001) that
“about 15,000 Palestinians marched last Friday at a rally in the Gaza
Strip in which demonstrators carried posters of Saudi terror mastermind Osama
Bin Laden.”
