NEW YORK – The State Department’s next legally-required report on efforts to capture Palestinian Arab killers of Americans is now more than seven months overdue. It was due to be delivered to Congress on later than May 29, 20001, but still has not appeared.

In face, the report is so late that a second report is also now overdue—the State Department’s next report was due November 29, 2001 and that, too, has not been delivered.

The State Department is required to deliver such reports twice each year to Congress, according to the Ashcroft-Salmon bill, passed by Congress in November 1999. It was strongly supported by the Zionist organization of America (ZOA), which has led the nationwide campaign to pressure the U.S. government to take meaningful action on behalf of American victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism.

More than 90 American citizens have been murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists since the 1960s, 21 of them since the signing of the Oslo accords in September 1993. The Israeli government has publicly identified, by name, 23 terrorists involved in the killings of Americans. All 23 are being sheltered
by the PA, and at least five of them have been rewarded with jobs in the Palestinian Preventive Security Forces.

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “The State Department’s failure to deliver these reports in a timely manner indicates yet again that the state Department is trying to keep the issue out of public view, because it fears publicity about Arafat harboring killers of Americans will make it harder to put pressure on Israel to keep making concessions to Arafat.”