Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:
The ZOA’s continuing its ongoing campaign against the opening of a dangerous, divisive Palestinian Arab-U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, which will be the first step in dividing Jerusalem and recognizing false Palestinian Arab claims to the Jewish capital. It will also reward Palestinian Arab intransigence, rejectionism, and Palestinian Arab incitement and terrorism against Israeli Jews. Today, ZOA has placed huge banners on prominent buildings in Jerusalem, proclaiming “No to a Palestinian consulate; Yes to an undivided Jerusalem,” in both Hebrew and English. The banners also display Jews praying at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, and a picture of the Palestinian regime’s terrorist dictator Mahmoud Abbas – who continues to pay Arabs lifetime pensions to murder Jews and Americans.
This latest ZOA effort follows a series of ZOA op-eds in the Jerusalem Post and elsewhere, press releases, speeches, Congressional hearing analyses, media appearances, podcasts, and an action alert to our activists opposing President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken’s plans to open a U.S.-Palestinian Arab consulate in the heart of western Jerusalem. ZOA is hosting a webinar on the consulate tomorrow (Tuesday November 2) with International Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich, Morton Klein, and ZOA Israel representative Dan Illouz. ZOA is also speaking to Israeli and American government officials, members of the Israeli consulate, and members of the U.S. Senate and House, educating them on the seriousness of this issue. ZOA has also highlighted statements by former Secretary Mike Pompeo, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and others opposing opening the illegal U.S.-Palestinian Arab consulate in Jerusalem.
ZOA is also pleased to report that 36 Republican members of the Senate proposed legislation (S. 3063) opposing and blocking funding for opening in Jerusalem a U.S. consulate for the Palestinian Authority dictatorship terrorist regime. In addition, 200 Republican House Congressmembers sent a letter to President Biden strongly opposing the Biden administration’s plans to open a U.S.-Palestinian Arab consulate in Israel’s eternal capital, noting that the consulate would promote the division of Israel’s capital, and that this would be “unacceptable, shameful and wrong” and inconsistent with U.S. law. In addition, some Democrats are privately calling on Biden to halt his plans to open a U.S.-Palestinian Arab consulate in Jerusalem.
ZOA will continue to strenuously fight to stop this catastrophic possibility promulgated by the Biden-Blinken administration.
Opening such a consulate would undermine Israeli sovereignty, and violates the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, and would result in violations of the Oslo Accords – which prohibit the Palestinian Authority from engaging in foreign relations.
Opening this U.S. consulate in Jerusalem will send a dangerous message that Jerusalem will soon be divided, and it will encourage the Palestinian Arab regime to continue to fight to have major parts of Jewish Jerusalem become the capital of their terrorist dictatorship.
Opening the consulate also would reward the Palestinian Authority regime’s continuing anti-Israel terrorism and hatred of Israel and Jews.
ZOA’s Morton Klein said, “There has been an extraordinary silence on this issue by the mainstream Jewish groups. This is not a controversial issue. We’re talking about Jerusalem and its possible division while rewarding a terrorist dictatorship which refuses to even speak to Israel while promoting murdering Jews. I call on AIPAC, AJC, ADL, the Conference of Presidents and other groups to speak out publicly and make your voices heard on this critical issue. Silence is complicity.