New York – The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and Stephen Flatow, father of terror victim Alisa Flatow and a member of the board of the ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice, protest the steps taken by United Nations (UN) Secretary General Kofi Annan. According to a statement issued Tuesday by his spokesman, the Secretary General has begun to set up a registry to record claims of damage allegedly caused by the construction of Israel’s security fence.
The registry was called for by the UN’s General Assembly last August, in a resolution issued in an emergency special session. The New York Times reported yesterday that “[t]he registry’s mission would be only to record claims, and not to evaluate or pay them;” payment would be “left to Israel’s existing compensation mechanisms.”
According to the ZOA and Stephen Flatow, the UN is ignoring a far more pressing need: establishing a registry of damage claims arising from Palestinian Arab terrorism.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “The UN’s efforts are completely misplaced and continue to reflect its outrageous bias against Israel. Since 2000, thousands of Jews have been killed or maimed for life in Israel by Palestinian Arab terrorists. These damages are truly beyond any measure of calculation.
“But it should be the mission of the UN to recognize, record and memorialize the death and devastation caused by Palestinian Arab terrorists and suicide bombers. The UN should not be focusing on inconveniences to Palestinian Arab farmers, or on travel delays and restrictions that may have arisen since the fence was constructed. These are inconsequential when compared to the loss of life. There would be no fence in the first place if there were no suicide bombings and no terrorism.”
Stephen Flatow is the father of Alisa Flatow, a 20-year-old American citizen and Brandeis University student who was killed on April 9, 1995, when a suicide bomber drove a van loaded with explosives into the bus on which she was riding in Israel.
Mr. Flatow said, “What chutzpah of the UN to record and measure people’s inconvenience, but not pay two seconds’ attention to college kids such as Alisa who have been murdered in cold blood. The UN sheds tears over the destruction of Palestinian Arab farmers’ olive trees, and worries that it is taking Palestinians a longer time to get to their destinations. How can that possibly compare to the many, many innocent lives that have been completely destroyed by Arab terrorists?”