The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas for condemning legitimate Israeli counter-terrorism action targeting terrorists who have struck at Israel, comparing it to the recent Palestinian acts of suicide bombing in Dimona, which claimed the life of one Israeli and wounded others. Abbas’ office issued a statement saying, “The Palestinian Authority expresses its full condemnation of the Israeli military operation this dawn in [the Palestinian village of] Qabatiya just as it condemns the operation that took place today in Dimona” (Yediot Ahronot, February 4, 2008).

Abbas has a long record of failing to condemn Palestinian terrorism as a moral obscenity, preferring only to deplore the adverse affect of Palestinian terror acts on Palestinian image abroad. The only times Abbas condemns Palestinian terrorism is on occasions like these, in which he first condemns legitimate Israeli military action targeting the terrorists whose acts Abbas pretends to also deplore:

Past condemnation by Abbas of legitimate Israeli counter-terrorist operations to eliminate terrorists:

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “Mahmoud Abbas continues to add to his long record of extremism and support for terror, as evidenced clearly by the fact that he has never even once approved of Israeli action to fight the terrorists, who he in any case takes care never to condemn on principled, moral grounds. On this occasion, he only uttered a phrase about condemning a Palestinian terror act in the course of condemning Israeli action against terror.

“Were Abbas genuinely for peace, he would welcome firm action against Hamas and other terrorist groups, he would be busy purging his own Fatah of similar elements and he would welcome the imprisonment of terrorists. In fact, he does none of these things.

“Under Mahmoud Abbas, the PA has not fulfilled its commitments under signed agreements with Israel and also the 2003 Roadmap peace plan to fight, arrest, extradite and jail terrorists and confiscate their weaponry and end the incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps that feeds it. He refers to Palestinian terrorists as ‘heroes fighting for freedom’ and rebuffed President Bush’s call at the 2005 Aqaba summit to accept Israel publicly as a Jewish state. Abbas has also declared in November 2006 that neither Fatah nor Hamas need recognize Israel. He has approved legislation granting benefits to the families of suicide bombers and other terrorists. He supports the legally baseless ‘right of return,’ whereby Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants would flood Israel and which is incompatible with Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state. He has declared that ‘the Palestinian leadership won’t stray from Arafat’s path’ and that Palestinians would never change the principles and goals of Yasser Arafat.

The Zionist Organization of America, founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver.