NEW YORK – Two Palestinian Arab terrorists involved in the murders of three American citizens are being sheltered in Yasir Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah.
The Israeli daily Ha’aretz reports (March 12, 2003) that Mahmoud Damra and his deputy Khaled Shawish are being protected by Arafat in the “Mukata,” the Palestinian Authority compound in Ramallah that serves as Arafat’s headquarters. Damra is the Ramallah-area commander of Arafat’s Force 17. He and Shawish organized numerous terrorists attacks in recent years, including the October 30, 2000 murder of U.S. citizen Esh-Kodesh Gilmore (whose parents are from Ohio and New Jersey) and the December 31, 2000 attack in which U.S. citizens Binyamin and Talia Kahane (from New York) were murdered, and five of their children were wounded. The terrorists said they operated under Damra’s direct command. (Jerusalem Post, Jan. 28, 2001, March 16, 2001 & April 24, 2001) According to the Ha’aretz report, Shawish himself was directly involved in the shooting of the Kahane family.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “If a murderer of Americans was being sheltered in the offices of any other foreign leader, the Bush administration would demand that the murderer be handed over—and it might well send in FBI agents to apprehend him, if necessary. Why is the administration silent when Arafat shelters murderers of Americans?”
The ZOA notes that President Bush said on September 11, 2001: “We will make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them.”
A February 2003 McLaughlin poll found that by a margin of 73% to 16%, the American public wants the U.S. to demand that the PA hand over all Palestinian Arabs involved in attacks in which Americans were murdered and wounded.
* 39 American citizens have been murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists since the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, 27 of them since the Palestinian Authority launched the current wave of violence in September 2000. In addition, 68 Americans have been wounded since 1993, 43 of them since September 2000 * A total of at least 106 Americans have been murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists, and 119 wounded, since 1968.