The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has pointed to statements made by former Palestinian Authority (PA) “Foreign Minister,” PLO Secretary-General and senior PA official, Saeb Erekat, before a UN forum that Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian (PFLP) are not terrorist organizations. Hamas has murdered over 1,000 Israelis in scores of suicide bombings and other attacks, launched 20,000 rockets against Israel, and calls in its Covenant for the destruction of Israel and the global murder of Jews; the PFLP has murdered hundreds of Israelis in hundreds of terrorist attacks over decades. The ZOA is calling for the Trump Administration to pull out of UN agencies and bodies that promote delegitimization of Israel, like the one before whom Erekat appeared.

Appearing as the representative of the non-existent ‘State of Palestine’ before a two-day UN conference entitled, ‘Ending the Occupation: The Path to Independence, Justice and Peace for Palestine’ and devoted to marking “50 years of occupation,” Erekat said that, “Hamas and the PFLP are not terrorist organizations” (Ben Cohen, ‘Hamas and PFLP Are ‘Not Terrorist Organizations,’ Top Palestinian Official Claims at UN Anti-Israel Forum,’ Algemeiner, June 29, 2017).

Also appearing before the UN Conference is Nabil Elaraby, a former secretary-general of the Arab League, Aida Touma–Sliman, a member of the Knesset from the anti-Zionist Joint List, and Nasser al–Kidwa, a former PLO foreign minister. Speakers and delegates at the forum will attend a reception on Thursday night hosted by Senegal’s UN Ambassador, Fode Seck, who also serves as chairman of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP), which is hosting the second day of the Conference’s proceedings. the Conference features several speakers who deny that Israel — a UN member state — has the right to sovereign independence.

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that the anti-Zionism campaign at the UN risked people coming to believe that ‘the United Nations is a place where lies are told.’ The UN has been the sort of place for decades. 

Saeb Erekat’s bare-faced lies about Hamas and the PFLP not being terrorist organizations is but the latest falsehood tolerated by UN bodies and events, like this conference on ‘Ending the Occupation’ –– which of course ended years ago with the withdrawal of Israeli authority over the lives of almost all Palestinian Arabs in Judea/Samaria and all in Gaza.

Erekat’s lies are even more brazen than usual, given that the recent murder of the 23-year old Israeli border policewoman, Hadas Malka, occurred in a terrorist attack for which the PFLP claimed responsibility.

“It is truly absurd that the UN lavishly supports for decades entire bodies, like the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, that have one job alone: defaming and lying about Israel.

“Erekat’s lies, on top of Mahmoud Abbas’ paying Arabs to murder Jews demonstrates that the PA is not a peace partner but a terrorist enemy. The ZOA reiterates its call for ending all US aid to the PA.

“This Conference also demonstrates that, despite Trump Administration calls for an end to UN anti-Israel hate fests, the UN continues to promote defamation and hate propaganda against Israel and the Jewish people. We call upon the Trump Administration to withdraw from all UN bodies engaged in this ongoing campaign.”