Praises Cong. Ros-Lehtinen for opposing PA aid
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has opposed President Barack Obama giving Mahmoud Abbas’ pro-terror, anti-peace Palestinian Authority (PA) an extra $150 million in direct aid on top of past, high and unmerited levels of U.S. taxpayer-funded aid – almost $2 billion in the past two years.
. The ZOA has been especially critical of the new aid, as it comes at a time when the PA has maintained its refusal to negotiate with Israel. The ZOA has also praised the incoming Chair of the U.S. Congress House Foreign Relations Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who has opposed the additional aid to the PA saying, “So long as Palestinian leaders keep being financially rewarded by the U.S. unconditionally, they will have zero reason to change their ways and truly commit to peace. It is long past time to hold Ramallah accountable.”
Rep. Ros-Lehtinen explained, “Sending US tax dollars to the Palestinian Authority to help them cover their budget shortfall is a bailout, plain and simple … It is deeply disturbing that the Administration is continuing to bail out the Palestinian leadership when they continue to fail to meet their commitments, under international agreements and requirements outlined in US law, including dismantling the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure, combating corruption, stopping anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement, and recognizing Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.”
Ros-Lehtinen is the co-author of the 2006 Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, which conditioned U.S. assistance to the Palestinian leadership “upon compliance that it renounce and combat violent extremism, abide by its existing agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist.”
(Yitzhak Benhorin, ‘Senior Republican against US aid to Palestinians,’ Yediot Ahronot, November 12, 2010).
The Obama Administration’s new direct aid to the PA of $150 million in addition to the $739.9 million which the PA has received from the Obama Administration this year (‘U.S. Assistance to the Palestinian Authority,’ State Department Official Spokesman, November 10, 2010).
U.S. aid to the PA has averaged several hundred million dollars a year and in recent years, under the Obama Administration, has increased dramatically – $980 million in 2009, for example. In contrast, in the 1990s, during the Oslo years and before the PA had rejected the Clinton peace proposal and resorted to a high-intensity terror war against Israel, claiming over 1,500 Israeli lives, the U.S. gave the PA $75 million annually – half the amount now announced in additional aid by the Obama Administration.
In announcing the additional aid, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “This “underscores the strong determination of the American people and of this administration to stand with our Palestinian friends even during difficult economic times as we have here at home” (Palestinian Authority to Get $150 Million Additional U.S. Aid to Pare Debt,’ Bloomberg News, November 10, 2010).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We are deeply critical of the Obama Administration for approving this unmerited tax-payer funded aid to the PA. Mamhoud Abbas and the PA have done nothing to warrant such aid: they refused to negotiate with Israel during almost the entire 10-month, unprecedented Israeli freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria; they refused to make any other gestures to Israel; above all, they have not fulfilled their commitment to arrest terrorists, outlaw terrorist groups and end the incitement to hatred and murder within the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps which feeds terrorism.
“Worse, Abbas, prime minister Salaam Fayyad and other senior PA officials have been guilty of anti-Israel, anti-peace acts, any one of which should have disqualified the PA for further U.S. aid.
“As we outlined only days ago, the Obama Administration has said and done nothing when:
· Mahmoud Abbas said to journalists from the Arab world, “If you want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor”;
· Fayyad walked out of a meeting with Israeli counterparts at the UN after refusing to sign a joint statement accepting Israel as a Jewish state;
· The PA recently publicly celebrated the 1978 coastal road massacre carried out by Fatah terrorists led by Dalal Mughrabi, in which 37 Israelis, including a dozen children, were murdered, and when the PA also named two youth summer camps in her honor; T
· The PA ambassador to Iran, Salah Zawawi, said that the PA will continue its war on Israel until “the complete eradication of the fabricated regime in due course”;
· The PA Minister of Religious Affairs, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, threatened war if Israel does not return to its “owners” Jerusalem, which he described as “Palestinian … throughout history”;
· When the PA Minister for Prisoner’s Affairs, Issa Karake, honored the families of dead terrorists and accused Israel of harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians;
· When PA ministers, including the allegedly ‘moderate’ Fayyad, have paid condolence calls on the families of slain terrorists and, while lauding the terrorists who murdered Israelis as ‘heroes’ condemned Israel for tracking them down and killing them;
· The 2009 Fatah conference reaffirmed Fatah’s refusal to accept Israel’s existence as a Jewish state; glorified terrorists and the ‘armed struggle,’ insisted on the so-called ‘right of return,’ rejected an end of claims in any future peace agreement with Israel, and called for a ‘strategic channel with Iran to be opened’ at a time Iran is defying the world by seeking to acquire nuclear weapons;
· Abbas honored Muhammad Daoud Oudeh, also known as Abu Daoud, the mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage-taking by Fatah terrorists of eleven Israeli athletes, as a hero and role model for Palestinians, calling him ‘a wonderful brother, companion, tough and stubborn, relentless fighter’; and
· When the PA named schools, streets sport teams and a computer center after terrorists who murdered Israelis.
· Senior PA official Saeb Erekat sent a letter of praise to Ahmed Sa’adat, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist leader who planned the 2001 assassination of Israeli minister Rechavam Ze’evi, expressing “solidarity and brotherhood” for “my dear brother.”
“It is clear from these examples that the PA is a promoter of anti-Israel terrorism, murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel, not a partner in peace for Israel. It is not possible for Israel to reach peace with the PA if it honors and rewards families for raising sons who murder Israelis, rather than arrest such terrorists and condemn their vile deeds. It is not possible to have peace with the PA if the PA demonizes Israel as a harvester of body organs of deceased Palestinians. It is not possible to reach a peace agreement with the PA when the PA resolutely takes the position that all Israel is Palestinian, including Jerusalem, and threatens war if all its demands are not met. It is not possible to reach peace if the PA calls for continuing conflict until Israel is destroyed.
“In these circumstances, we are appalled at the Obama Administration’s further funding of the PA. Moreover, to give further aid at a time when it refuses talks – what could be a clearer message to the PA that it need neither moderate, nor even negotiate, in order to continue to obtain munificent U.S. funding? Americans, polls of whom have shown disagreement with President Obama’s policy towards Israel and the PA and who clearly support Israel, should be appalled and make their voices heard. This fresh aid for the PA is a further, dangerous blunder by the Obama Administration.”