NEW YORK- The Palestinian Authority has been providing weapons and ammunition to Palestinian Arab terrorists in Gaza, according to a new report. In response, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is urging the Bush administration to acknowledge that the PA is a terrorist regime and treat it accordingly.

The report, which was released by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies, covered the weeks during May 2004 when Israeli forces, conducting Operation Rainbow, were searching for weapons-smuggling tunnels used by terrorists in Gaza. The report found:

“During the final days of Operation Rainbow, the Palestinian National Security apparatus in Rafah supplied weapons (small arms, machine guns) and ammunition to Palestinian terrorists to be used while the operation was still under way … The incident serves as an illustration of the Palestinian Authority apparatuses’ readiness to provide military aid to Palestinian terrorists.”

(See www.intelligence.org.il/eng/sib/6_04/rafah.htm)

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “The latest confirmation that the PA regime is directly involved in sponsoring terrorism against Israelis demonstrates that the PA cannot be ‘reformed’; it is an evil regime that must be completely dismantled and outlawed. Why isn’t the Bush administration imposing sanctions on the PA, just as it imposes sanctions on other terror regimes?”

In April 2004, the State Department released its annual report, Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003, which noted that “The PA’s efforts to thwart terrorist operations were minimal in 2003,” and, moreover, that “some personnel in the security services, including several senior officers, have continued to assist terrorist operations.”

The language was identical to the previous year’s report, Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002, which stated: “The Palestinian Authority’s efforts to thwart terrorist operations were minimal in 2002” and “Some personnel in the security services, including several senior officers, have continued to assist terrorist operations.”

That marked a change from the report surveying 2001, which acknowledged only that “PA counterterrorism activities remained sporadic throughout the year,” and “a lax security environment allowed Hamas and other groups to rebuild terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian territories.” But the State Department blamed that on Israel, asserting: “Israel’s destruction of the PA’s security infrastructure contributed to the ineffectiveness of the PA.”