The Zionist Organization of America Press Release, January 12, 2007.
Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas made in speech to a rally
of his Fatah supporters calling on Palestinians to stop killing each other and to
murder Israeli Jews instead.
Addressing a huge rally of 250,000 in Ramallah in honor of the 42nd
anniversary of the founding of the terrorist Fatah party which he co-founded
with arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, Abbas called for Palestinians to turn their
guns and rifles on Israeli Jews, saying
“We have a legitimate right to direct our guns against Israeli occupation.
It is forbidden to use these guns against Palestinians … Our rifles, all our rifles
are aimed at The Occupation.”
(The rally, commemorating the first terrorist attack by Fatah, which
targeted Israel’s national water carrier on January 1, 1965, was delayed until
yesterday due to internal Palestinian armed fighting).
We have no doubt that Iran’s Ahmadinejad would have been proud to deliver
Mahmoud Abbas’ speech himself.
Not once in his speech did Abbas condemn or even disapprove of continuing
rocket attacks and attempted suicide assaults by Hamas and by his own Fatah
movement.
To the contrary, Abbas praised Arafat and Fatah terrorists killed in
attacks on Israelis as “martyrs” and specifically saluted Sheikh Ahmed Yassin,
one of Hamas’ founders. (Fatah’s Constitution to this day calls for the
destruction of Israel (Article 12) and the use of terrorism against Israelis as an
indispensable part of the struggle to achieve that goal (Article 19).
Abbas also renewed a two-year old invitation to the other major Palestinian
terrorist groups, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to join the Palestine
Liberation Organization officially.
In subsequent PA television programs, the Palestinian leader’s words
were repeated almost exactly by other Palestinian officials, such as Ibrahim
Abu-Naja and Dr. Kamal Sharafy, who called Israel “the enemy” and “the
Zionist enemy”, respectively.
The PA TV senior announcer also made it clear that it was not the
“settlements” or Israel’s capture of Judea, Samaria and Gaza in 1967 that
began Israel’s “occupation”; but rather, Israel’s creation in 1948 marked the
beginning of “occupation.”
Excerpts from Abbas speech to the rally:
On the legitimacy of Palestinian terrorist groups and anti-Israel terrorist acts:
“No one is a criminal. All our people are as one hand to free our
land.”
On Jerusalem:
“Today more than any other day, we must hold fast to our Palestinian
principles … We will not give up one grain in Jerusalem.”
Likens Israel’s elimination in 2002 of Fatah’s terrorist base in Jenin and the
killing of 54 armed Palestinians to the Nazis destroying Stalingrad:
“We all know that the Israeli occupation has staged many evil and
criminal attacks, including the attack on Jenin, which President Yasser Arafat
referred to as ‘Jenin-grad’.”
Demands so-called ‘right of return’:
“The issue of the refugees is non-negotiable … We also reject any
attempt to resettle the refugees in other countries.”
On Jews:
“The sons of Israel are corrupting humanity on earth.”
Past statements by Abbas:
On Israel: “the Zionist enemy”
(Associated Press, January 4, 2005; CNN.com, January 7, 2005).
On recognizing Israel: “Hamas is not required to recognize Israel. It is not
required of Hamas, or of Fatah, or of the Popular Front to recognize Israel”
(Al-Arabiya and PA TV, October 3, 2006, translation courtesy of
Palestinian Media Watch).
On suicide bombers: “Allah loves the martyr.”
(Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2005).
On wanted Palestinian terrorists: “heroes fighting for freedom.” ( Age
, January 3, 2005);
“Israel calls them murderers, we call them strugglers.” (Jerusalem Post,
December 25, 2004).
On Palestinian terrorist leaders Yasser Arafat, Hamas’ Ahmad Yasin and Abdel
Aziz Rantisi and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Fathi Shikaki: “martyrs”
(Palestinian Media Center, September 9, 2005)
On Yasser Arafat: “It is our duty to implement the principles of Yasser Arafat.”
( Haaretz, January 3, 2005);
“We must continue the march together, in keeping with the principles for
which Abu Ammar became a martyr… We will continue in the
path of the late president until we fulfill all his dreams.” (Agence France-Presse,
November 11, 2005);
“The Palestinian leadership won’t stray from Arafat’s path.” (Yediot
Ahronot, November 11, 2006)
On disarming Palestinian terrorists: “a ‘red line’ that must not be crossed.”
(Washington Times, January 3, 2005)
On jailed Palestinian terrorists: “our heroes.”
(Israel National News, May 26, 2006).
On the so-called ‘right of return’ of Palestinian refugees and their millions of
descendants which, if implemented would end Israel as a Jewish state: “We
won’t give up on this issue.”
(Yediot Ahronot , November 12, 2006; Israel National News, November
12, 2006).
On the Lebanese terrorist group Hizballah: “A source of pride and sets an
example for the ‘Arab resistance’.”
(Jerusalem Post, August 6, 2006).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said:
“Mahmoud Abbas’ speech to
Fatah, as shocking as it is, is no aberration, even it is particularly revealing of
his intention to get Palestinians killing more Israelis.
Those of us who have followed his record of statements and actions are
only too well aware of the fact that he is not a moderate or a peace-maker. On
the contrary, he is an unreconstructed extremist who continues to this day to
pursue the goal of Israel’s elimination.
In addition to the many statements quote above that prove Abbas’ belligerence
and bad faith as a supposed negotiating partner for Israel, it bears repeating
that Mahmoud Abbas not only co-founded the terrorist group Fatah with Arafat
and served as his deputy for forty years, but that he also funded the Munich
massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes in 1972 and wrote a PhD thesis and
published a book denying the Holocaust.
However, Abbas’ extremist actions speak even more loudly than his extremist
words. As PA president, Abbas has refused to implement the signed Oslo
agreements and the 2003 Roadmap peace plan which requires him to fight,
arrest, extradite and jail terrorists and confiscate their weaponry and end the
incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools
and youth camps that feeds it.
Last year, Abbas endorsed the so-called ‘Prisoners’ Plan’, a document
produced by jailed Palestinian terrorists, that endorses continued terrorism
against Israel, legitimizes the murder of Jews, does not accept Israel’s
existence as a Jewish state, abrogates Palestinian obligations under the signed
Oslo agreements and the 2003 Roadmap peace plan, and insists on the ‘right of
return’.
Abbas has attempted to form a unity government with Hamas, whose Charter
calls for the destruction of Israel (Article 15) and the murder of Jews (Article 7).
In December 2005, Abbas approved legislation mandating financial
benefits to be paid to families of killed Palestinian terrorists. It is also
noteworthy that the very occasion of Abbas’ speech was meant to be the
anniversary of the first terrorist attack carried out by Fatah in 1965, two years
before Judea, Samaria and Gaza came under Israeli control as a result of a war
to destroy Israel which Fatah enthusiastically welcomed.
It is also noteworthy that in his address to the Fatah rally yesterday, Abbas
made it as clear as he could that he has no intention to fulfill Palestinian
commitments to fight, jail and extradite terrorists and dismantle the apparatus
of terror in the PA.
And of course in the past he has done nothing to stop or disarm
terrorists, and has called doing so a ‘red line’ that must never be crossed.
Clearly, Abbas has no intention of ending Palestinian terrorism, which
completely invalidates him as a peace partner. To build hopes of a peace
agreement upon Mahmoud Abbas is to build castles on sand.
For these reasons, we are appalled that the Bush Administration continues to
promote and lavish praise upon Mahmoud Abbas as being a brave moderate
and peace maker, such as when President Bush praised him on September 20,
2006 for being “willing to speak out and act on behalf of people who yearn for
peace” and whom he “can’t thank enough for the courage you have shown.”
Worse, it has just been reported today that the Bush Administration
intends to pour $86 million into the armed forces of Abbas who called upon
Palestinians only yesterday to cease firing at everyone except Jews. This U.S.
money, and the arms that it pays for, will be used against only one intended
victim: Israelis.
It is ironic and even tragic that the Bush Administration, by doing this, will be
effectively financing the Palestinian terror campaign against Israel with
American taxpayers’ money. The U.S. has also already given Abbas 7,000
assault rifles and one million rounds of ammunition.
Jews and their leaders often invoke the phrase “Never Again” to make it clear
that they will never permit even the beginnings that permitted Hitler to
perpetrate the Holocaust. This phrase is sounding increasingly empty. There are
presently policies and attitudes that are endangering Jewish lives again. We
dare not allow this to happen.
I can only say that Jewish leaders who invoke “Never Again” are simply lying
about their commitment to that imperative when they say nothing about
Palestinian calls for the murder of Jews, the incessant firing of Qassem rockets
into Israel, continuous smuggling of heavy weaponry from Egypt into Gaza and
ignoring the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement in every aspect of the
Palestinian culture.
Given Abbas; latest speech and his long record of extremist words and deeds,
we call upon Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice not to meet with Mahmoud
Abbas when she visits the region in the next few days.
We also urgently renew our call upon the Bush Administration to
immediately cease all support for Mahmoud Abbas and the PA and to cut all
ties with it. We further call upon the Bush Administration to cease discussing
any plans for rewards and concessions to the PA until it acts on its 13-year old
commitments to fight, jail and extradite terrorists and end the incitement to
hatred and murder of Israelis in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and
youth camps that feeds terrorism.
It is high time for the U.S. and Israel to stop whitewashing Abbas’ pro-terror
and anti-peace actions and tell the truth — that Abbas doesn’t want peace and
is not a peace partner. Abbas is part of the problem, not the solution.”
