New York – The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has sent a telegram to Secretary of State designate Condoleezza Rice, thanking her for her condemnation of Palestinian Arab incitement against Israel during her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday.
In response to a question from Sen. Sununu (R-NH), Rice said: “You can’t incite against Israel and say you want a State. It’s just got to stop. They’ve got to stop it in their media. They’ve got to stop it in their mosques,…we will be going to remind them…” to stop the incitement of hatred and murder against Israel. Rice also added that “those Arabs who insist on violence and insist on terrorism have got to be isolated and ultimately disarmed.”
But the ZOA did disagree with Secretary of State designate Rice’s statement that the “Palestinian leadership, at least in word, is devoted to fighting terror.”
The ZOA noted that Palestinian Authority (PA) leader and Holocaust Denier Mahmoud Abbas last week called for the Palestinian Arabs to move “from a little jihad to a big Jihad” and called Israel “the Zionist enemy.” These are words that promote terror, not peace, and when Abbas demanded that Palestinian Arab refugees live in Israel, that is a verbal call for Israel’s destruction, not peace.
Even when Abbas states that this is not “the time for violence,” he implies that tactically the Arabs should wait until later to kill and maim. He doesn’t say that violence against innocent Israelis is immoral or outrageous. Further proof of Abbas’ lack of seriousness against violence is yesterday’s report by Israel television Channel Two correspondent Ehud Yaari that “Abu Mazen has reached an agreement with the Fatah terror group to stop trying to kill Israelis within the Green Line near the Gaza Strip, but they may continue trying to murder Israelis inside the Gaza Strip.”
Just as troubling, during an official visit in Saudi Arabia last month, Abbas said that with respect to his opinion about violence against Israel, he said, “I don’t want my comment on the demilitarization of the uprising to be misunderstood…all I meant is that we are in a phase that does not necessitate arms because we want to negotiate.” (UPI, Dec. 15, 2004)
In light of the continuing problem with the PA and Abbas’ actions, the ZOA urges that there be no negotiations with Abbas and no US funds given to the PA until Abbas ends the incitement, dismantles the terror groups, arrests the terrorists, eliminates the illegal weapons, and they accept unequivocally and publicly Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.