NEW YORK- The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) strongly protests the reported plan by a senior Bush administration envoy to pressure Israel to make even more concessions to the Palestinian Arabs.

Bush envoy Elliot Abrams arrives in Israel this week. The Jerusalem Post reports (August 3, 2004): “The White House emissary is expected to pressure Israel to comply with US demands that Jerusalem takes serious steps to evacuate illegal outposts, to improve the humanitarian conditions of the Palestinians and removing checkpoints in the West Bank.”

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “At a time when Israel faces constant terrorism, a U.S. official is demanding the removal of checkpoints that keep out terrorists — that’s like asking the U.S. government to stop checking travelers at airports and borders. At a time when the Arabs are engaged in widespread illegal construction, a U.S. official focuses on a handful of tiny outposts on empty land that are harming nobody. Asking Israel to give humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Arabs ignores the fact that Israel is under daily violent attack by the Palestinian Arabs — and in the middle of a war, no country can be expected to provide aid to an enemy population. In any event, if the Palestinian Arabs require assistance, it should come from the oil-rich Arab kingdoms. Those regimes’ support for Palestinian Arab terrorists has fueled the aggression against Israel which has caused the very ‘humanitarian’ problems they are complaining about.

“Israel has no obligation to take any more steps or any more concessions so long as the Palestinian Authority continues to refuse to fulfill its obligations. No government in the world is obliged to keep its side of the agreement if the other party refuses to do so. The U.S. should not ask Israel to do anything further until the PA keeps its obligations in the Oslo accords and the Bush Road Map, including arresting terrorists, outlawing terrorist groups, confiscating their tens of thousands of weapons, shutting down their training camps, stopping payments to terrorists’ families, and stopping glorification of terrorists in the PA-controlled media, schools, summer camps, and mosques.”