Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:

The ZOA is appalled by the news today that temporary “caretaker” Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid will publicly endorse and legitimize a Palestinian terrorist dictatorship state on Israel’s lawful land, during Lapid’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly tomorrow. Lapid’s speech will also mainstream Palestinian regime dictator and terrorist Mahmoud Abbas, who calls people of the Jewish faith “filthy Jews,” as a moderate peace seeker.

Lapid’s planned speech will endanger and betray Israel and her citizens, and encourage more attacks on innocent Jews. Most Israelis – including Lapid’s own coalition partner, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett – oppose a Palestinian Arab state. Bennett slammed Lapid’s intended speech, correctly noted that Israel has the right to this land, and aptly stated:

“There is no room for another state between the sea and the Jordan . . . By the way, who are we talking about when we talk about Palestinians? About Hamas, which is supported by the majority of Palestinians? About Islamic Jihad? About Abbas who in his free time denies the Holocaust and pays murderers? They themselves are deeply conflicted and light years away from being able to govern.”

The Palestinian Authority, its ruling Fatah party, and Hamas all still have the unrelenting goal of entirely destroying Israel and murdering as many Jews as possible. A Palestinian Arab state will strengthen Palestinian Arabs’ ability to kill innocent Jews; enable massive rocket and terror attacks on Israel’s major population centers and airport, and gravely threaten Israel’s existence.

To this day, the official Fatah charter still calls for destroying the Jewish State, stating that: Fatah “oppos[es] any political solution as an alternative to demolishing [Israel]”; and has as its goal the “eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.” The Fatah charter moreover declares that “Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic . . . in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished.”

The Palestinian Authority’s official emblem shows all of Israel covered by a Palestinian Kaffiyeh, along with a picture of terrorist Yasser Arafat and a Kalashnikov rifle. Hamas’ charter likewise calls for Israel’s destruction, as well as the murder of every Jew in the world.

Palestinian Arab so-called “security forces” double as terrorists, and perpetrate numerous attacks on innocent Israelis. There was another such murder of an Israeli last week. Last week, Palestinian Arab terrorists opened fire on Israelis at a checkpoint near Jenin, and killed Israeli Maj. Bar Falah.

The Palestinian terrorist regime has refused to negotiate for the last 12 years, and has turned down offers of statehood without counteroffers three times in the last 20 years, and 8 times in the last 85 years.

Terrorist dictator Abbas continues to spend over $400 million per year horrifyingly paying Arabs lifetime pensions ( at five times the average Palestinian salary) to murder Jews and Americans. The Regime also continues to honor Jew-killers by  naming schools, streets, sports teams and children’s camps after murderers of Jews, has parades honoring them and places thousands of their pictures in high schools and universities glorifying them. 

Frighteningly, Lapid’s planned UN speech will empower Bar’s murderers; will render Lapid’s condolences to Bar’s family empty and hypocritical; and will result in more bereft and inconsolable Jewish families.

Interestingly, Lapid is using the term “separation” in attempt to justify his betrayal. “Separation” and “disengagement” are euphemisms for dangerous concessions and surrenders of lawful Jewish lands to Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Every Israeli so-called “separation” caused more terror, more Intifadas (terror wars) and more murders of innocent Jews. These include:

• the Oslo Accords (which empowered the PLO/Fatah and led to mass suicide bombings and Intifadas);
• the Hebron partial withdrawal;
• withdrawals from checkpoints (which led to innocent Jews, including beloved Rabbi Meir Chai – a father of seven, being murdered where a checkpoint had previously stood);
• removal of Jewish communities near Jenin (which then enabled Jenin to become a terrorist hotbed); and
• the 2005 Gaza surrender (which led to Hamas launching 25,000 rockets at Israel from the locations where Gaza Jewish communities once stood).

Indeed, Lapid’s coalition partner, former Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stated, when blasting Lapid’s intention to publicly endorse a Palestinian Arab terror state: “History has proven that any area we evacuate – immediately turns into a nest of terror. The citizens of Israel have been under the threat of missiles and rockets from Hamas from Gaza for years. We will not need a similar threat to the heart of the country from Judea and Samaria.”

Former Israeli PM Netanyahu likewise succinctly stated in the NY Times in March 2018, that a Palestinian Arab state “doesn’t work . . . When we leave land terror organizations take over. Immediately.”

But Lapid has learned nothing from this history, and is trampling on the memory of the thousands of innocent Jews who were murdered and maimed by Palestinian Arabs, which resulted from the surrenders of Israeli lands and uprooting of Jewish communities.

It is moreover clear that a Palestinian Arab state would be a Hamas-Fatah-Iranian terror state. The Palestinian Center for Survey and Policy Research (PCSPR) poll last week once again showed that if Palestinian Arab presidential elections were held today in Gaza and the “West Bank” (Judea and Samaria), Hamas would overwhelmingly win. (Fatah terrorist dictator Mahmoud Abbas would receive only 38% of the vote; and Hamas terrorist leader Ismail Haniyyeh would receive 53% of the vote.)

The same poll showed that if Abbas does not run, the Palestinian Arab public favors Marwan Barghouti, followed by Haniyyeh, as Abbas’ successor. Barghouti is a Fatah/Tanzim terrorist, convicted and sentenced to five life sentences in Israel for murdering five innocent Jews. Lapid should think about what this says about the Palestinian Arab public. It’s as if the American public favored Charles Manson (if he were still alive) for U.S. president.

Lapid’s planned speech tomorrow is also a serious betrayal of his role as a temporary “caretaker” prime minister, until the Israeli elections take place in a few weeks, and the promises made by his misbegotten coalition when it was formed last year. Caretaker prime ministers are not supposed to make major diplomatic policies. Further, the Lapid-Bennett coalition of disparate parties assured the public that it would focus on economic and social issues rather than on Israeli-Palestinian issues.

(See also “A Palestinian State Would Be Another Arab Terrorist State,” Sept. 28, 2018.)