July 17, 2003 Contact: (212) 481-1500 Attn: NEWS EDITOR

MEMBER OF HOUSE INT'L RELATIONS COMMITTEE OPPOSES AID TO PA, DEMANDS PA STOP
NAMING STREETS AFTER TERRORISTS

NEW YORK- A prominent member of the House International Relations Committee
has publicly declared his opposition to U.S. aid to the Palestinian
Authority and demanded that the PA stop naming streets in honor of
terrorists.

U.S. Representative Joseph M. Hoeffel (D-PA), speaking in the House of
Representatives, said:

We need the Palestinians to crack down on terror and they haven't done it
... we must demand and see a greater commitment toward peace and the end of
terrorism from the Palestinians before we reward them with money or support
that in fact could be used against the Israeli people ... Before we
seriously pursue the Road Map and before we send $20 million to the
Palestinian Authority, the PA should at a minimum take five steps:

1. Arrest terrorist leaders. 2. Confiscate weapons that can be used against
innocent Israelis. 3. Dismantle terrorist organizations. 4. Change the
cultural bias that allows anti-Semitism to be taught in the schools and
broadcast on radio and TV. 5. Stop the practice of honoring suicide
terrorists with posters and street names.

Morton A. Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of America
(ZOA), said: "Congressman Hoeffel is to be praised for his courageous and
principled stand. We are grateful to him for his outspoken stance against
the Palestinian Authority's policy of coddling and glorifying Palestinian
Arab terrorists. Telling the truth about the Palestinian Authority's
pro-terrorist actions is a crucial part of America's fight against terrorism
worldwide."

Examples of streets and other public sites in PA-controlled areas that are
named after terrorists:

* A street in the PA-ruled town of Beit Lahiya, and a public square in the
PA-ruled city of Jericho, are named after Yiyhe Ayyash. Ayyash, who died in
1996, was named by the State Department as a prime suspect in the August 21,
1995 Jerusalem bus bombing in which Connecticut schoolteacher Joan Davenny
was murdered.

* A street in the PA-ruled town of Al-Bireh is named after Abu Iyad (Salah
Khalaf), a PLO leader involved in planning many attacks, including the 1972
Munich Olympics Massacre, in which 12 people were murdered, including a U.S.
citizen, David Berger of Cleveland, Ohio.

* There are PA summer camps named after Jihad Al-Amarin, a Fatah leader who
died last year; suicide bomber Ayyat al-Akhras, who murdered two Israelis in
a Jerusalem supermarket bombing on March 29, 2002; and Dalal Mughrabi, who
helped carry out the 1978 Tel Aviv Highway Massacre of 38 people (including
Gail Rubin, niece of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff).

There is also a school in the PA-ruled town of Al-Shuyukh, a kindergarten in
the PA-ruled town of Dura, and a Fatah Women's Young Staff Preparatory
Course, all named after Mughrabi.

* A square in the PA-ruled city of Jenin is named after the Iraqi bomber who
murdered four American soldiers in a suicide carbomb attack on March 27,
2003.

* A student organization at the PA's Al Quds Open University, in the town of
Tubass, is named after suicide bomber Wafa Idris, the first woman suicide
bomber, whose attack in Jerusalem on Jan. 27, 2002, murdered one person and
wounded over 150.

* A soccer tournament in PA-ruled Tulkarm in January 2003 was named after
suicide bomber Abd Al-Baset Odeh, who massacred 30 people in a Netanya hotel
on Passover eve in 2002, including a 90 year-old U.S. citizen, Mrs. Hannah
Rogen.

* * *

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.