NEW YORK, June 23 — The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has welcomed the Palestinian Authority (PA)  surprising statement that it will end its unity government with the Hamas terrorist organization if it emerges that Hamas engineered the recent kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers. The Israeli military and security forces are involved in a massive manhunt to find the three teenagers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented clear evidence to Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas that Hamas, which calls in its Charter for the worldwide murder of Jews, was involved in the kidnapping, leading a senior but unnamed PA source to say, “If it becomes clear to us that it was done with the knowledge and approval of Hamas’ senior political echelon, there will be no choice but to dismantle the unity government and postpone the inner-Palestinian reconciliation process” (‘If kidnappers are Hamas, we will disband unity government,’ Israel Hayom, June 17, 2014).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We welcome this surprising PA statement — all the more surprising, in fact, because Mahmoud Abbas himself has publicly approved in the past of kidnapping Israelis to extort concessions from Israel.

“In 2011 Abbas said, ‘Hamas kidnapped a soldier [Gilad Shalit] and managed to keep him for five years — that’s a good thing.’

“The proof of the pudding, of course, will be in the eating. At the moment, we only have an unnamed PA official saying the PA will disband its unity government with Hamas if they believe Hamas is involved in the kidnapping.

“In view of the PA’s two-decade long record of falsehood and refusal to fulfill its commitments under Oslo to fight terrorism and end incitement to hatred and murder, count us skeptical. After all, even as Abbas said last week in Saudi Arabia that the PA would search for the teenagers, he also blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for finding a ‘suitable opportunity to use violence against us, to destroy everything and wreak havoc and destruction,’ while the PA Security Forces said on Facebook, ‘May Allah curse the corrupt people [Jews], the enemies of Islam,’ and the official PA newspaper, Al Hayat al-Jadida, suggested that perhaps ‘Israel itself is behind the ‘kidnapping.'”