Why Doesn’t Bush Protest
Glorifying Murderers of 30 People?
New York- The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is urging the Bush administration to speak out against the Palestinian Authority’s decision to glorify a murderer of an American citizen by naming a soccer tournament in honor of the murderer.
The official PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah reported on January 21, 2003 that the PA-sponsored soccer tournament in the PA-ruled city of Tulkarm was named “the Tulkarm Shahida [Martyrs] Memorial Soccer championship tournament of the Shahid Abd Al-Baset Odeh.” Odeh was the suicide bomber who attacked a Netanya hotel on Passover last year, massacring 30 people, including a 90 year-old U.S. citizen, Mrs. Hannah Rogen. (Translation courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch.)
ZOA NationalPresident Morton A. Klein said: “We call on the Bush administration to speak out PA’s glorification of the murder of an elderly American citizen. Bush’s silence sends a message to the PA that the U.S. does not seriously object to the PA glorifying murderers of Americans. We call on Bush to end all relations with the Palestinian Authority and to place it on the U.S. list of terrorist groups.”
The ZOA points out that the PA has repeatedly honored Palestinian Arab murderers of Americans by naming schools, streets and public squares after them:
* Schools and Camps Named After Killer of Americans: In August 2002, a school in the PA-controlled town of Al-Shuyukh, near Hebron, was renamed “the Dalal Mugrahbi School,” in honor of a woman terrorist involved in the 1978 Tel Aviv Highway massacre of 37 people, one of whom was Gail Rabin, niece of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT). The School receives U.S. funding through the ANERA organization, whose spokesman, Peter Gubser, claimed on August 11, 2002 that the school’s directors had agreed to revert to the school’s original name; yet on August 16, 2002, the official PA newspaper Al Hayat Al-Jadidah again referred to it as “the Dalal Mugrahbi School in Al-Shuyukh.” (Palestinian Media Watch)
In addition, there is a Dalal Mughrabi Girls High School (PA Television, March 31, 2000); a Dalal Mugrahbi Summer Camp in Rafiah (PA Television, August 9, 2001); a Dalal Mugrahbi Kindergarten in Dura (Al Ayyam, May 30, 2001); and a Dalal Mugrahbi Course In the Fatah Women’s Young Staff Prepatory Course (Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah, Jan. 25, 2002)
* Public Square Named After Killer of Americans: In February 1996, the PA named a public square in Jericho after Yiyhe Ayyash. The U.S. State Department has named him as a prime suspect in the August 21, 1995 Jerusalem bus bombing in which Connecticut schoolteacher Joan Davenny was murdered. (Peace Watch Annual Report 1966; N.Y. .Daily News, April 22, 1998)
* Streets Named After Killers of Americans: In December 1996, the PA named a street in the town of Beit Lahiya after Yiyyhe Ayyash. (Jerusalem Post, Dec. 17, 1996)
A street in PA-controlled Al-Bireh is named after Abu Iyad (Salah Khalaf), a PLO leader involved in planning many attacks, including the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre, in which 12 people were murdered, including a U.S. citizen, David Berger of Cleveland, Ohio. A photo of the “Abu Tyad Street” sign appeared in the pro-PLO newspaper Jerusalem Times on September 25, 1998.