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

When President Biden nominated Linda Thomas-Greenfield to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, the ZOA did not place Thomas-Greenfield on ZOA’s huge list of Biden’s hostile-to-Israel nominees and appointees, because Thomas-Greenfield seemed to be relatively reasonable. But Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield’s repeated failure to veto anti-Israel UNSC resolutions since October 7th, and her “Remarks at a UN Security Council Briefing on the Situation in the Middle East” on June 26, 2024, were so full of anti-Israel, antisemitic lies and pronouncements that we now must add her to our “Biden Hostile-to-Israel Appointments Watch” list. We realize that Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield was “just following orders” from the Biden/Blinken administration, but that’s no excuse.

Lie #1: During her UNSC address, Amb. Thomas-Greenfield falsely blamed Jewish “settlers in the “West Bank” for a “deeply alarming” “uptick” in “deadly violence against Palestinian civilians” in 2023-24. In fact, Jewish “settlers in the West Bank” (a pejorative term for Jews living in the lawful and historic Jewish homelands of Judea/Samaria) are not the source of violence. Virtually every Palestinian Arab killed in Judea/Samaria was a terrorist in the midst of attacking Jewish civilians or security forces, including attacking the IDF when the IDF attempted to arrest Palestinian Arab terrorists/murderers in counter-terrorism operations. A very few may have been caught in crossfire between terrorists and the IDF.

Amb. Thomas-Greenfield failed to mention that the real problem is the increased Palestinian Arab deadly violence against Israeli civilians. The U.S. Ambassador also ignored the role of Iran and the Palestinian Authority in financing and inciting this.

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Israel Security Agency data regarding major Palestinian Arab terror attacks on Israelis (excluding the October 7th massacre) is summarized here:

Further information and a few of many examples:

• In addition to “lone wolves” incited by the Palestinian Authority’s promotion of terror and financial rewards to terrorists who murder Jews, about 20 armed Palestinian Arab terrorist groups operating throughout Judea and Samaria are carrying out terrorist attacks against Jews. These terror groups are equipped with large weapons and ammunition stockpiles financed by Iran and smuggled in through Jordan. But the only Palestinian Arab violence in the “West Bank” mentioned by the Ambassador during her entire speech was that the U.S. sanctioned one “militant Palestinian group, Lions’ Den.”
• According to IDF data reported by JNS, during 2023, there were 608 explosives, ramming, shooting and stabbing attacks by Palestinian Arabs against Jews in Judea/Samaria, a 350% increase over 2022. The 300 shooting attacks by Arabs against Jews in 2023 were the most since the Second Intifada (the bloody Palestinian terror wave in 2000-2005). More than 50 of the 2023 shooting attacks emanated from the terrorist hotspot of Jenin, resulting in an IDF counterterror operation in Jenin. The enormous number of Arab terror attacks emanating from Judea/Samaria diverted IDF attention from the Gaza border.
• The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reported that, in addition to the vastly increasing numbers of Palestinian Arab attacks against Jews in 2023, supported and incited by the PA, the attacks were more deadly. Palestinian Arab terrorists from Judea/Samaria murdered 43 Israelis in 2023, including 37 civilians and six security forces members. (This toll apparently does not include the Jews murdered by PA brigades in the October 7 massacre.) Many more Jews were wounded. In addition, for the first time, Palestinian Arab terrorists (from Jenin) attempted to shoot rockets at Israeli towns.
• During the three-month period between Oct. 7, 2023 and Jan. 15, 2024, the Hatzalah-Judea and Samaria ambulance service recorded more than 2,600 terrorist attacks against Israelis in Judea/Samaria, including 760 cases of rock-throwing, 551 fire bombings, 12 attempted or successful stabbings and nine vehicular assaults.
• On April 12, 2024, Palestinian Arabs brutally murdered a 14-year-old Jewish boy, Binyamin Achimeir who was tending sheep, by abducting, knifing and splitting open the Jewish boy’s head with rocks. In addition, Arab terrorists shot and wounded an Israeli civilian and injured three Israeli soldiers who were searching for the Jewish boy after his abduction. An official reported repeated increasing Palestinian Arab violence against Jewish shepherds.
• On February 21, 2024, three armed Palestinian Arab terrorists from Judea/Samaria exited from their vehicles and ran down the road between Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem, shooting at the Jews sitting in their cars who were stuck in a traffic jam. The terrorists murdered a young Jewish man, Matan Elmaliah, 26, and wounded 11 others, including seriously wounding a 23-year-old pregnant Jewish woman. At Matan Elmaliah’s funeral, his father cried out against the Palestinian Arab terrorists, saying “Terrorism meets us from the north and from the south and from Jerusalem and from Samaria, terrorism is harming us. . . . We are in the midst of terrorism that plagues us every day.”
• On May 30, 2023, the “Tulkarm Battalion,” a joint terrorist organization comprised of Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah movement Al Aqsa Brigade, shot to death Meir Tamari, a 32-year-old Jewish civilian and father of two young children, ages 1 and 3, as he was driving home near his Jewish community of Hermesh.
• On February 25, 2023, Palestinian Arab terrorists rammed and shot to death Jewish brothers Hillel Yaniv, 21 and Yigal Yaniv, 19, while the young Jewish brothers were driving through Huwara on the way to Torah study classes.
• On February 10, 2023, a Palestinian Arab terrorist deliberately rammed into and murdered two other Jewish brothers – children Yaakov Yisrael Paley, age 6, and his brother, Asher Menahem Paley, age 8, along with a young, newly married yeshiva student, Alter Shlomo Lederman, age 20, and seriously injured the boys’ father.
• Fatah [the Palestinian Authority’s main party] terrorists also bragged in a video posted on October 7 on the Bethlehem-Fatah social media channel that Fatah joined Hamas’ October 7 attacks, took over Kibbutz Nahal Oz, killed soldiers and seized military equipment.

Lie #2: Amb. Thomas-Greenfield absurdly stated: “we commend the Palestinian security forces, as well as the Palestinian Authority, for their efforts in maintaining peace and security in the West Bank.” In fact, the so-called Palestinian Authority security forces are a major part of the problem. For instance:

• Palestinian Authority (PA) police and security officers (trained by American forces) perpetrated or attempted 150 attacks on Jews during the last year.
• The Palestinian Authority rejected a U.S. plan for the U.S. to train and arm several thousands of additional Palestinian Arab troops (to add to the PA’s current 30,000 troops) to combat the Palestinian Arab terror organizations operating in Judea/Samaria.
• The Palestinian Authority continues to constantly incite and pay huge financial rewards to, and honor the Palestinian Arab murderers of Jews, by naming sports teams, schools, streets and public facilities after the murderers; plastering posters all over Judea/Samaria and on social media; holding television specials in their honor, etc. For instance, in June 2024, the Palestinian Authority honored and named a major hall after arch-terrorist Abu Jihad, who planned the murders of 125 Jews, including the 37 Jews (including 12 children) in the Tel Aviv coastal road massacre, the worst massacre of Israelis prior to October 7. (PMW report) On December 31, 2023, the PA daily news outlet praised four terrorists who murdered and wounded Jews in car ramming and tunnel operations as “martyrs” who have “ascended to heaven.” There are countless more instances.

Lie #3: Amb. Thomas-Greenfield “reiterated our [the Biden administration’s false] belief that Israel’s program of support for the expansion of settlements is inconsistent with international law.”

In fact, Jews have the legal right to settle, live in and reestablish the Jewish homeland in all of Israel including Judea/Samaria, under binding international law, including the San Remo resolution; Anglo-American Convention – a U.S. treaty obligation; League of Nations Covenant; British Mandate; and United Nations Charter (another U.S. treaty obligation, which continued all rights granted to the Jewish people after the Mandate’s expiration).

In 2019, the U.S. officially recognized that Jewish “settlements” (communities) in Judea/Samaria are legal, in an announcement by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after “carefully studying all sides” of the legal issues. Secretary Pompeo also noted during his announcement that former President Reagan had also stated in 1981 that Jewish settlements are not illegal. It is utterly shameful that Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield and the Biden administration are trying to overturn this careful, official recognition of the Jewish people’s legal rights in the historic Jewish homeland.

Amb. Thomas-Greenfield likewise wrongly ignored the Levy Commission (headed by esteemed former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmund Levy)’s careful examination and conclusion that when Israel recaptured Judea/Samaria after 19 years of unlawful Jordanian occupation (1948-1967) “the original legal status of the territory was restored, namely, a territory designated as a national home for the Jewish people, who had a “right of possession” to it during Jordanian rule while they were absent from the territory for several years due to a war imposed on them, and have now returned to it.” (Levy Commission Report on the Legal Status of Building in Judea and Samaria)

Lie #4: The U.S. Ambassador also claimed that Israeli expansion of settlements “only serves to weaken Israeli security.” In fact, the Jewish communities in Judea/Samaria are essential to Israel’s security. Without them, Israel would be indefensible, and Israel’s major population centers would be subject to daily rocket and terror attacks from elevated territory.

Lie #5: Amb. Thomas-Greenfield also stated that the U.S. is continuing to do “the hard work of diplomacy on the ground, with Egypt, Qatar, and Israel. . .”

In fact, Biden’s “diplomacy” is counterproductive and far from tough. For instance, in January 2024, Biden quietly agreed with Qatar to continue our huge Al Udeid Air Base near Doha (the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East) for another ten years – instead of using the threat of leaving the airbase to pressure Qatar to pressure Hamas to release the hostages and to expel the Hamas leaders in Doha who direct Hamas’ Gazan operations.

Moreover, the Biden administration has made Hamas less likely to release hostages or surrender by repeatedly undercutting Israel – including by demanding ceasefires; Amb. Thomas-Greenfield refusing to veto anti-Israel UNSC resolutions; falsely criticizing Israel for Gazan casualties; promoting deals that enable the Hamas terror army’s survival; promoting a Palestinian Arab state; demanding that all of Gaza must remain intact – meaning that there must be no protective buffer zone in Gaza at the end of the war; cutting arms shipments to Israel; and failing to demand Hamas’ unconditional surrender.

Lie #6: Amb. Thomas-Greenfield repeatedly called humanitarian needs in Gaza “catastrophic,” and blamed Israel. In fact, as of May 15, 2024, Israel facilitated 531,160 tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza, including: 380,550 tons of food; 33,900 tons of water; 23,110 tons of medical supplies; 59,600 tons of shelter supplies; 23,110 tons of mixed supplies, on over 27,000 trucks. Countless more trucks and supplies continue entering Gaza every day. Gazan civilians are not going hungry. And aiding an enemy civilian population that is holding your citizens hostage is unprecedented in the history of warfare. Further, the only party that should be blamed for humanitarian issues is Hamas. For instance, the IDF recently found tons of food in Hamas hideouts in Gaza’s Zeitoun neighborhood.

Bad Policy #1: Thomas-Greenfield stated that “the U.S. government will continue to engage [meaning: pressure] the Government of Israel to release the full clearance revenues due to the PA on time, every month – including the transfers that Israel has not sent since April 5.” In addition, the Ambassador called for all UN members to financially support the Palestinian Authority.

Providing money to the PA is dangerous. Thomas-Greenfield misleadingly omitted that the PA will simply use the money to continue to: (i) illegally pursue lawfare against Israel, including libelous actions against Israeli leaders in the International Criminal Court; (ii) pay officials’ [meaning: Hamas] salaries in Gaza; (iii) pursue the PA’s terror campaign and terror incitement against Jews and Israel; (iv) pay Arab terrorists $400 million per year to murder Jews; (v) fail to condemn and even celebrate October 7; (vi) Arm PA police and security forces who have perpetrated 150 attacks against Jews in the past year; and (vii) arm Fatah brigades such as the Fatah brigade that participated in the October 7 massacre.

Bad Policy #2: Amb. Thomas-Greenfield promoted and misrepresented Biden’s awful “deal.” The deal would trade a fraction of the remaining hostages and dead hostage bodies for close to 1,000 Palestinian Arab terrorists initially. The total deal would release some 6,000 Palestinian Arab terrorists, including convicted murderers. The deal also leaves most hostages languishing in Hamas’ brutal captivity for months or longer; involves immediate ceasefires and Israeli withdrawals; and requires Israel to leave Gaza without obtaining a protective buffer zone and without destroying Hamas’ terror army; and ends up leaving Hamas in control of Gaza.

Bad Policy #3: Amb. Thomas-Greenfield lauded the Biden administration’s harsh sanctions imposed against alleged “extremist settlers” (innocent Jews) and against “Tsav 9” (a peaceful group protesting aid to Gaza while Hamas and Gazan civilians continue to hold Israelis captive). The Ambassador falsely called Tsav 9 a “violent extremist Israeli group.”

Bad Policy #4: Amb. Thomas-Greenfield made repeated demands that Israel needs to improve the humanitarian situation. As noted above, Israel has facilitated unprecedented, extraordinary aid to Gazan “civilians” – even while those civilians continue to aid Hamas, including by storing Hamas weapons in their homes, and hiding and torturing Israeli hostages. Indeed, a Gazan civilian physician and journalist and their family hid and tortured Israeli hostages who were rescued on June 8.