NEW YORK- The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has strongly protested the Bush administration’s criticism of Israel’s elimination of Palestinian Arab terrorist leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that Israel’s action was “deeply troubling.” White House spokesman Scott McClellan then called reporters to tell them that the White House is “on the same page” as Boucher and likewise regards Israel’s action as “deeply troubling.”

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “It is deeply troubling that the Bush administration is ‘deeply troubled’ that Israel eliminated a terror leader especially when the U.S. itself has repeatedly engaged in similar targeted killings of senior terrorists and their sponsors, including the missile attack on a carload of terrorists in Yemen and the killing of Saddam Hussein’s sons.”

Under Yassin’s leadership, Hamas has murdered hundreds of Israelis and at least 38 Americans since 1993.

The ZOA president said:

“Just as U.S. forces have every right and obligation to protect Americans by pursuing and eliminating terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere without restraint, Israel has every right and obligation to protect Israelis by pursuing and eliminating terrorists in Gaza without restraint. The Bush administration should be supporting Israel’s actions.

“Sheikh Yassin’s Hamas is responsible for the deaths of 38 of the 51 Americans murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists in Israel since 1993. The Palestinian Authority’s passionate condemnations of the elimination of Sheikh Yassin remind us that the PA treats Hamas as its brothers, not its enemies; the PA names streets after Hamas murderers; and the PA’s official media calls Hamas murderers ‘heroes’ and ‘martyrs.’ But most of all, we must remember that the PA harbors Hamas murderers, including the murderers of dozens of Americans and President Bush said in his address to Congress on September 21, 2001: ‘We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism … From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.’”