New York – The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has praised the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations (CPMJO) for its critical analysis and fact sheet on Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas’ ‘Prisoner’s Document,’ formulated by jail terrorist and proposed by Abbas for referendum. This document is a prescription for more terrorism, not peace. It does not recognize Israel and abrogates PA obligations under the Oslo agreements and the 2003 Roadmap.
Key elements of the CPMJO document include:
- “The Prisoners’ Document … maintains that terrorism is a legitimate option, undermines the necessary conditions for peace, and violates the requirements and tenets of the Oslo Accords, the Road Map, and the Quartet’s conditions for support for the Palestinian Authority. It is certainly not a “peace plan,” as some media report.”
- “Nowhere in the document is Israel explicitly recognized or a two-state solution advocated, nor are any conditions listed for an end to the conflict and a permanent peace. The document thus appears to adhere to the PLO’s 1974 ‘strategy of stages’ to establish an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza as a base from which eventually to conquer the State of Israel.”
- “The document’s language supports the use of terrorism. It affirms a “right to resistance and upholding the choice of resistance by all means … The terms “right of resistance” and “by all means” have been recognized as codes for terrorism, and here are specifically juxtaposed with non-violent “political action.” “Resistance,” as a key component of their political vision, is mentioned fifteen times in the document.”
- “Contrary to many media reports, the document does not restrict terror attacks to the West Bank, but explicitly calls for “continuing popular resistance against the occupation in all its forms, places and policies.”
- “Despite the Road Map’s demand for the Palestinian Authority to dismantle terrorist groups, the Prisoners’ Document calls for the opposite — for the Palestinian Authority’s security forces to “coordinate and organize the relation between the forces and resistance [ i.e. terrorist] groups, and to organize and protect their weapons.”
- “‘Return’ of Palestinian refugees is mentioned six times as a fundamental Palestinian right and political goal. Paragraph 9 elaborates on the question of return and cites Resolution 194, which implies that “return” refers to the resettlement of Palestinian refugees and their descendants in pre-1967 Israel … This demand is rejected by Israeli parties across the political spectrum as incompatible with the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, and its strong and repeated affirmation undermines the chances for a negotiated peace.”
- “International resolutions are accepted selectively, using the phrase, “international resolutions fair to our people.” There is no mention of UN Security Council Resolution 242 or any other UN resolution that implies recognition of Israel. The document specifically supports only UN General Assembly Resolution 194, upon which the Palestinians base their claim to a ‘right of return’
- “The Oslo Agreements and the Road Map are not mentioned, and their conditions are implicitly rejected by the failure to explicitly recognize Israel, the legitimization of terror, and the non-recognition of relevant Security Council resolutions.”
- “The document demands the release of all Palestinian prisoners, including convicted terrorists and murderers, as “a sacred national duty.”
- The authors of the document are five Palestinian terrorists: 1. Marwan Barghouti, Fatah, convicted in May 2004 for the murder of five Israelis in three separate terror attacks and on several counts of attempted murder; Sheik Abdel Khaliq al-Natsche, Hamas, financier for Hamas terror attacks; Sheik Bassam al-Saadi, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, financier for PIJ’s terror cell in Jenin; Abdel Rahim Malouh, a high-level leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, involved in the 2001 murder of Israel’s Minister of Tourism Rehavam Zeevi; Mustafa Badarne, terrorist recruiter for the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, June 13).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We praise the conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations for its accurate analysis of the Abbas document, which the ZOA has already exposed as constituting a clear retreat from PA obligations under signed Oslo agreements and the 2003 Roadmap peace plan, promoting and supporting terrorism against Israeli Jews, demanding terrorist be released from Israeli prisons, and demanding the right of so-called Palestinian refugees to move to Israel, which would essentially end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, as well as refusing to recognize Israel’s existence. This document’s clauses on promoting and urging the continuation of terrorism against Israeli Jews in fact legitimizes and legalizes the murder of Jewish people. The Nazis would have been especially proud of these clauses.
“This plan is not bashful about the terrorism it promotes — it simply sees terrorism at this moment as an adjunct to diplomacy. A document outlining a defined strategy of terrorism is obviously not only a non-starter as a peace plan, but is in fact a program for committing war crimes. If the IRA produced a proposal whereby it publicly advocated terrorism against Protestants living in Northern Ireland, it would he immediately denounced as barbaric and unacceptable.
“But then little else perhaps could be expected of Mahmoud Abbas, who after all co-founded the terrorist group Fatah with Yasser Arafat, was Arafat’s close confidante and advisor for 40 years and wrote a thesis and later a book denying the Holocaust. On any reasonable reading, Abbas’ document cannot be considered a step forward to peace and reconciliation but instead is a step towards more terror and war. It is an anti-Israel, anti-peace document that deserves the unqualified condemnation and rejection of the civilized world.”