Checking for Bombs
Is Not “Humiliation”

NEW YORK- The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has strongly protested President Bush’s erroneous allegation that Israel is guilty of “the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people.”

Webster’s Dictionary defines “humiliate” as: “To reduce to a lower position in one’s eyes, or in the eyes of others.” The ZOA points out that checking travelers for bombs at security checkpoints does not “reduce them to a lower position” any more than U.S. airline security personnel checking airplane passengers for bombs before they board a plane.

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein, Chairman of the Board Dr. Alan Mazurek, and Dr. Michael Goldblatt, Chairman of the National Executive Committee, wrote in a telegram to President Bush: “People who want to pass through security checkpoints, whether at Dulles Airport or in Judea and Samaria, should be checked for bombs. That’s not ‘humiliating’. It’s a reasonable and ordinary part of our post-9/11 world. Anything less would risk the lives of innocent people, whether in Israel or America.”

President Bush made the remark in his speech in England on Nov.19,2003. He also reiterated his call for the creation of a “viable, independent” Palestinian Arab state; criticized Israel for building “walls and fences” to protect itself from terrorism; and demanded that Israel “freeze settlement construction [and] dismantle unauthorized outposts,” but did not mention the much more widespread Arab illegal construction activity in the territories.

The President said that the Palestinian Arabs “should adopt peaceful means,” but he did not mention either Yasir Arafat or the Palestinian Authority by name or acknowledge their role in terrorism. He said “Arab states should end incitement in their own media” and “cut off public and private funding for terrorism,” but he did not mention the names of the Arab regimes that engage in incitement and support for terror.