1,000 Israelis killed
6,000 wounded in 26,000 terrorist attacks
New York — Do Israelis feel better off today than before the Oslo process began?
Today is the fifth anniversary of the vicious terrorist war against Israel launched by the Palestinian Authority (PA) on September 29, 2000. During this tragic five-year period, 1,060 Israelis have been killed and 6,089 wounded in 26,159 terrorist attacks. The war was launched by the PA while negotiations were still proceeding only months after an unprecedented peace offer by then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to establish a Palestinian state in most of Judea, Samaria, all of Gaza and with a capital in eastern Jerusalem. That war is still on and terrorism has not stopped under his successor, Mahmoud Abbas.
Since January 2005, a ‘cease-fire’ has supposedly been in place but the terrorism — suicide bombings, drive-by shootings, rocket and mortar attacks — have all continued. In the past year, 3,530 terrorist attacks were perpetrated in which 57 Israelis were murdered and 516 were wounded. In the year before that, when there was no ‘cease-fire,’ there were 3,877 terrorist attacks, claiming the lives of 135 Israelis and wounding 567. Additionally, terrorism reached an 18-month high in June and July 2005, with more killed and wounded than in the previous June and July.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “To paraphrase U.S. President Ronald Reagan, do Israelis feel better off today than before the Oslo process began? In the five years before Oslo, less than 200 Israelis were murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists. Although each of these deaths was a tragedy, it doesn’t compare to the dramatic increase in terrorism and murders of Jews since Oslo.
“It is tragic that five years have passed since the most horrific phase of this terrorist war erupted and still the PA has not been held to account. Instead, it is shocking to see the world continue to praise Mahmoud Abbas and the PA as a moderate, peace-seeking leadership. During this terror war, neither Yasser Arafat nor Mahmoud Abbas were compelled by international pressure to stop this war by disarming and jailing the terrorists, confiscating illegal weaponry, and ending the incitement to suicide terrorism and hatred against Jews, Judaism and Israel that permeates Palestinian institutions, mosques, media, schools and summer camps.
“It is high time for the international community to cease the billions of dollars in financial aid and cease negotiations until the PA fulfills all of its obligations under the Roadmap peace plan. Incomprehensibly, the opposite has happened. Financial aid has been increased and negotiations are being urged while the world demands no consequences for the PA’s anti-peace, pro-terror actions.”