ZOA: Bush Should Cut Ties to PA, Support Israeli Action, & Send FBI to Arrest Palestinian Arab Killers of Americans
News
August 20, 2003


Five More Americans Murdered by
Palestinian Arabs — 46 Since ‘93


NEW YORK- In response to the Palestinian Arab massacre of 20 Jews on a Jerusalem bus —including five American citizens— the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is urging the Bush administration to cut off all negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA), halt U.S. financial aid to the PA, and support strong Israeli military action against Palestinian Arab terrorist groups. The ZOA is also urging President Bush to send FBI agents to the Middle East to arrest Palestinian Arab killers of Americans.


ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “The Jerusalem bus massacre proves that the so-called ‘cease-fire’ was a sham—it has been nothing more than a cover for the Palestinian Arab terrorists to rebuild and re-arm, under the protection of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), who openly declares that he will not honor his Road Map obligation to dismantle Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah. We urge the Bush administration to halt all negotiations with the Palestinian Authority; to cut off the $215-million in annual U.S. aid to the PA; to cancel plans to give the PA’s security forces $300-million; and to support all Israeli military action against the terrorists.”


The ZOA notes that 5 of the 20 Jews murdered in the Jerusalem bus massacre were Americans, including a mother of 13 from New Square, NY, 43 year-old Mrs. Goldie Taubenfeld. A total of 46 Americans have been murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists since the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993. (36 of the 46 were killed since the Palestinian Authority launched the current wave of violence in September 2000; more than 100 American citizens have been murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists since the 1960s.)


In view of the fact that many of these killers of Americans are living openly and their whereabouts are known, the ZOA urging President Bush to send FBI agents overseas to apprehend them immediately, just as the FBI is routinely sent to other countries to apprehend fugitive killers of Americans:


* A killer of Americans preaches openly at a mosque in Gaza: In February 2003, the U.S. government indicted eight Palestinian Arab terrorists involved in an Islamic Jihad cell whose victims included Alisa Flatow of West Orange, NJ, a 20 year-old Brandeis University junior, who was murdered in a bombing near Kfar Darom on April 9, 1995; and Shoshana Ben-Yishai, 16, of Queens, NY, who was murdered in a shooting attack on a bus in Jerusalem on November 9, 2001. One of those indicted was Abd Al-Aziz Awda, 52, who is described in the indictment as the founder and “spiritual leader” of the terror ring. He is head of the Al Qassam Mosque in the PA-controlled Gaza Strip.


* A killer of an American is living openly in Zaragoza, Spain: Ibrahim Abayat has been identified by the Israeli government as having taken part in the January 2002 murder of U.S. citizen Avraham Boaz, age 72, near Bethlehem. Abayat was one of the 13 Palestinian Arab terrorists who took over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and later agreed to go to Europe. According to the Spanish newspaper Madrid El Pais (Nov. 3, 2002), Abayat now lives in a Red Cross-owned apartment in Zaragoza, Spain.


* A killer of an American is working openly as an adviser to Arafat: Ahmed Jbarra carried out a bombing in Jerusalem on July 4, 1975, in which 14 people were murdered, including U.S. citizen Rivka Ben-Yitzhak, age 35; three of the wounded were also Americans. In June 2003, Jbarra was appointed “special adviser on prisoner issues” to PA chairman Yasir Arafat and given a seat on the ruling council of Fatah, the terror group founded by Arafat and PA prime minister Mahmoud Abbas [Abu Mazen]. (Jerusalem Post, June 15, 2003)


* Three killers of Americans are living in the official PA headquarters in Ramallah: Tawfik Tirawi (former head of PA Intelligence), Mahmoud Damra (Ramallah regional commander of Yasir Arafat’s Force 17), and Damra’s deputy Khaled Shawish. (Ha’aretz, March 12, 2003; Jerusalem Post, Aug. 5, 2003. They organized the October 30, 2000 murder of U.S. citizen Esh-Kodesh Gilmore (whose parents are from Ohio and New Jersey) and the December 31, 2000 attack in which U.S. citizens Binyamin and Talia Kahane (from New York) were murdered, and five of their children were wounded. Some of the terrorists involved in the attacks were captured, and confessed that they operated under Damra’s direct command. Shawish himself was directly involved in the shooting of the Kahane family. (Jerusalem Post, Jan. 28, 2001, March 16, 2001 & April 24, 2001)




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