NEW YORK- Resorting to crude anti-Jewish bigotry, Yasir Arafat’s official news agency has declared that Jews control the United States government.

An editorial on Arafat’s WAFA web site on May 24, 2002, complained that “the USA tries to reshape the Palestinian Leadership and opinion according to Sharon’s desires and Israel planning and the Jewish Lobby that rules the USA Administration.”

Morton A. Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), said: “If any other international figure accused Jews of controlling the United States government, there would be an uproar. Why is the world silent when an aide to Arafat makes such statements? This sort of crude anti-Semitism is further evidence that for the Palestinian Arabs, it is not an issue of Israeli concessions—the issue is the very existence of the Jewish state of Israel. Arafat has developed an entire culture based on hatred and violence against Jews. The United States must end all relations with Arafat’s hate-mongering terrorist regime.”

Other recent examples of anti-Semitism by Arafat or his aides:

* “The Jews Killed Jesus”:

Senior Arafat aide Bassam Abu-Sharif, who is often touted in the West as a “moderate,” claimed in his March 20, 2002 column in the London-based Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that Israeli soldiers shot at the statue of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, and added: “This was, of course, a failed attempt to murder peace, love, and tolerance, just as their forefathers tried to murder the prophetic message when they hammered their nails and iron stakes through the body of Jesus into the wooden cross.” (Translation courtesy of MEMRI.)

Arafat’s WAFA news agency last year distributed a “news” article on Christmas Eve 2001, in which it quoted a Palestinian Arab resident of Bethlehem saying, “Jesus had suffered on the hands of the Jews and we and our President are facing the same now.”

An editorial on the web site of Arafat’s Fatah movement on April 15, 2001 stated: “Today on April 15, 2001, while we are celebrating the days of Passover, Sharon’s hostile acts remind us of what his predecessors did to Christ.”

* The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: An article in the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah on January 25, 2001 cited the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Czarist Russian anti-Semitic forgery, as “proof” that Israel is trying to control the international media.

* “The Jews Deceive the World”: Sheikh Ikrama Sabri, the PA-appointed Mufti (senior Muslim religious authority) of Jerusalem, told the German magazine Die Welt (Jan.17, 2001): “It is the art of the Jews to deceive the world.” (Translation courtesy of the Middle East Media Research Institute.)

(For a detailed list of recent anti-Semitic statements by Arafat, his aides, and the PA media, call the ZOA at 212-481-1500.)