NEW YORK – The State Department is trying to justify its outrageous new policy of refusing to publicly identify Palestinian Arab killers of Americans, claiming that identifying those terrorists would “glorify” them—even though the State Department itself continues to publicize the names and photographs of many other terrorist killers of Americans around the world.
Asked by the Jerusalem Post (March 6, 2002) about the new policy of not identifying Palestinian Arab killers of Americans, State Department spokesman Gregg Sullivan replied: “There is a concern about glorifying these people…In this particular instance, we took the decision of not glorifying them.”
Morton A. Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of America ZOA) —which first exposed the State Department’s new policy— said:
“This is the latest in a series of actions by the State Department which focus us to question why it is not doing everything it can to capture Palestinian Arab killers of Americans. It certainly seems peculiar that in every other instance, the State Department is willing to risk ‘glorifying’ terrorists by publicizing their names and photos, but for some reason when it comes to Palestinian Arab terrorists, the State Department’s policy suddenly changes.
“Does the State Department really expect the American public to believe that publishing photos of Fatah and Hamas terrorists who kill Americans would ‘glorify’ them, while somehow the State Department’s own publication of the photos of terrorists from Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and Libya does not glorify those terrorists?”
Examples of terrorists who are currently identified on the State Department’s web site, www.RewardsForJustice.net:
* Photos and names of 19 fugitive Al Qaeda terrorists.
* Photos and names of 2 fugitive Hezbollah terrorists.
* Photo and name of a terrorist who is a member of both Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Al Qaeda.
* A photo of a terrorist involved in a 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet, even though his name and affiliation are unknown.
* Photos and names of 5 terrorists who were captured years ago. In the case of one of them, a Libyan, the State Department web site features two photos of him from different time periods.
* Photos and names of 3 suspected Yugoslavian war criminals.
ZOA president Klein added: “This incredible double standard is part of the State Department’s appeasement policy of bending over backwards to avoid embarrassing Yasir Arafat. The State Department knows that publicly mentioning the names of the suspects in these cases would mean drawing attention to the fact that the suspects include two long-time confidantes of Arafat; three officials of Arafat’s Palestinian Authority; three members of Arafat’s Force 17 ‘presidential guard,’; and five members of Arafat’s security forces. Imagine if the FBI’s Most Wanted List included only the names of the victims, yet failed to include the names or photographs of the suspects—it would make their capture nearly impossible.”
NOTE: The State Department’s new policy is revealed on page 17 of its just-released report to Congress on U.S. efforts to capture Palestinian Arab terrorists who have murdered or injured American citizens. The report —which was delivered to Congress more than eight months late— is required by the terms of the Ashcroft-Salmon bill, passed by Congress in November 1999.