Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Chairman Mark Levenson, Esq. released the following statement: 

ZOA is appalled by extremist antisemites and Israelophobes Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s, Linda Sarsour’s, other Islamic radicals’ and the anti-Israel so-called “Jewish Voice for Peace” (JVP)’s vicious, unwarranted attacks on Jewish CNN commentator Jake Tapper.  Mr. Tapper merely accurately stated that Palestinian leaders set a tone and make statements promoting, justifying and validating violence and hatred against Israelis.  Mr. Tapper moreover weakened his statement by claiming that there is not necessarily a direct link “between what the [Palestinian] leader says and the violence against some poor Israeli girl in a pizzeria.”   In truth, as Palestinian-Arab leaders even admit, there is such a direct link.

Mr. Tapper said on Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union”:  

“You hear conservatives all the time, rightly so in my opinion, talk about the tone set by people in the Arab world, Palestinian leaders talking, and the way they talk about Israelis, justifying, in the same way you’re doing.  No direct link necessarily between what the leader says and the violence against some poor Israeli girl in a pizzeria. But the idea that you’re validating this hatred. You can’t compare the ideology of Hamas with anything else.  But at the same time, either tone matters or it doesn’t.” 

In fact, Palestinian-Arab leaders do far worse than Mr. Tapper mentioned.  There is a direct link between Palestinian-Arab leaders’ statements, speeches and policies and the Palestinian-Arab terrorists who blow up poor innocent Israeli children. 

Horrifyingly, Palestinian Authority (PA) Arab leaders directly incite and pay enormous financial awards (the 2018 annual amount was $330 million) to Arabs to murder innocent Israelis and Americans.  The PA recently doubled payments to the murderers of 3 Jewish teenagers, one of whom was also an American.  A recent Palestinian Media Watch report revealed that the PA’s ongoing payments to the terrorists responsible for the 2002 Hebrew University cafeteria massacre have amounted to $1,257,259.00. (In that attack, the paid Palestinian-Arab terrorists murdered 9 innocent people, including 5 American students, and wounded approximately 100 Jews and others.)   

PA Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Information and Official Presidential Spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina recently made it crystal clear that there is a direct link between PA Arab leaders and Arab/Islamic terrorists who murder innocent Jews.  During an interview on Israeli Kan television on April 16, 2019, Rudeina openly admitted that the PA continues paying Palestinian-Arab terrorists because the Arab/Islamic terrorists are acting on behalf of the PA, and because the PA ordered the terrorists’ actions.  Rudeina stated:   

“Israel needs to understand this. It is impossible to send a soldier to war and then not take care of his family. We are talking about someone who acts on our behalf and receives orders from us.” 

In addition, PA Arab/Islamic dictator Mahmoud Abbas called President Trump’s demands that the PA stop paying terrorists to murder Jews and Americans “insane.”  Mahmoud Abbas repeatedly broadcasts calls to spill blood to prevent Jews’ and Christians’ “filthy feet” from “defiling” Jerusalem.  The Hamas charter calls for Muslims to murder every Jew.   

Yet, even though Mr. Tapper’s statement about Palestinian-Arab leaders’ incitement was too mild, Islamic Jew-hating Israelophobes, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Linda Sarsour and JVP, issued a hailstorm of hateful attacks against Mr. Tapper, and unwarranted absurd demands for Mr. Tapper to be fired.   

Linda Sarsour’s MPowerChange and JVP started a “Cancel Tapper” campaign, absurdly accusing Mr. Tapper of “anti-Palestinian & anti-Muslim bigotry.”   

Internet mobs posted ugly comments attacking Mr. Tapper’s Jewish faith, and calling him a “racial bigot” and a slew of names that should be unprintable. 

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib retweeted Al Jazeera producer Sana Saeed’s screed falsely accusing Mr. Tapper of “unethical journalism” and “blatant anti-Arab bigotry & Islamophobia”; and wrongly complaining “you invoke Palestinians & Arabs as a comparison to white nationalist violence in the US?;” and demanding: “@CNN needs to take action.”   

Tlaib added her own irrational tweet: “Comparing Palestinian human rights advocates to terrorist white nationalists is fundamentally a lie.”   

Of course, Mr. Tapper did not compare “Palestinian human rights advocates” to “terrorist white nationalists.”  Violence-promoting Palestinian-Arab leaders are not “Palestinian human rights advocates,” by any stretch of the imagination; they are Jew-hating Israelophobes who glorify and promote murdering Jews! 

In our view, the only difference between Palestinian-Arab terrorists who murder innocent people and white supremacist terrorists who murder innocent people is that the Palestinian-Arab terrorists are paid and told by their leaders to destroy people’s lives. 

Incidentally, Tlaib, Sarsour, JVP and their collaborators failed to notice that Mr. Tapper’s statement unfairly criticized “conservatives.”  The Investigative Project on Terrorism Director Steven Emerson explained:  “Sober viewers might note that Tapper is using the example of Palestinian incitement to ask whether people are being inconsistent in minimizing the role of political rhetoric in the El Paso shooting. But Palestinian advocates blinded by a hatred for Israel are not sober viewers.”  (See “Blind Anti-Israel Hate Drives the Campaign to Fire Jake Tapper,” by Steven Emerson, Algemeiner, Aug. 8, 2019.) 

It is truly frightening that making even a minimal truthful mention of Palestinian Arab leaders’ violence-inducing statements and policies subjects a journalist to virulent hate by the antisemitic, Israelophobic mob.  

ZOA urges CNN to ignore and even condemn the venomous, unwarranted, ridiculous calls for Mr. Tapper’s scalp, and to instead praise Mr. Tapper for telling a rarely mentioned truth about the terrorist Palestinian-Arab leaders. We dare not allow Tlaib and Omar and Sarsour’s nonsensical version of political correctness and their personal and ugly antisemitic, Israelophobic, Islamic terrorist-sympathizing political agenda to intimidate, censor and stop journalists and others from telling the truth of the Arab Islamic war against Israel, the Jews and the West.