ZOA Condemns Obama Call For A Hamas/Fatah Terror State Based On Indefensible
'67 Lines
http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=2051

May 19, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Morton A. Klein
Phone: 212-481-1500

AIPAC Should Rescind Invitation for Obama to Speak [IMRA: this line was in
the press release as distributed by e-mail]

Endangers Israel and Mideast Stability

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the oldest pro-Israel
organization in the United States, strongly condemned President Obama’s
Mideast speech given today promoting and supporting the establishment of a
Hamas/Fatah/Iran terrorist state on the Auschwitz 1967 indefensible
armistice lines. This state would almost surely become a Hamas/Iran terror
state threatening Israel and further destabilizing the Mideast. President
Obama has dealt Israel a severe diplomatic blow, which harms all those who
care about peace and fighting terrorism.

President Obama is either extraordinarily naïve or extraordinarily hostile
to the Jewish state of Israel, despite his claims of commitment to Israel’s
security. One cannot claim to care about a neighbor’s young children while
renting out rooms to child predators.

It is breath-taking, shocking and frightening that at a time when the
Nazi-like terrorist group Hamas (a proxy of Iran), whose charter calls for
the murder of every Jew (Article 7) and Israel’s destruction (Article 12),
merges with Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah, forming a unity government, Obama can now
call for a PA state and on the ’67 indefensible lines yet. Obama was
recently given a Noble Peace Prize; he should now receive the Nobel War
Prize for increasing the likelihood of a Mideast war and endangering Israel’s
very existence.

After the Hamas-Fatah signing ceremony this month in Cairo Hamas chief
Khaled Meshaal said Hamas would never recognize Israel’s right to exist and
never abandon liberating all of Palestine.

Hamas Minister Fathi Hamad said, “the Jews have become abhorred and loathed
outcasts…whenever we achieve something against the Jews, the world applauds
us…hatred for Jews is on the rise…people who hate the Jews…will support us.”

President Obama is now supporting a racist, Jew-hating Hamas/Fatah state.

And it gets even uglier and more frightening.

Yunis al Astal, a member of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Parliament said
on Hamas al Aqsa TV (May 11, 2011), “the Jews being brought to Palestine is
a divine plan that gives the Arabs the honor of annihilating the evil of
this gang…the Jews are more dangerous than all of the world’s lethal birds
of prey, dangerous reptiles and lethal bacteria combined.”

And Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah is hardly comforting. Abbas said, “we will not ask
Hamas to recognize Israel,” and refuses to change the Fatah Charter calling
for terrorism and Israel’s destruction. This week he publicly praised those
who attacked Israel, from Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza – as well as those who
participated in violent demonstrations saying “their blood was not spilled
in vain” and that “they died for the Palestinian people’s rights and
freedom.”

Abbas promotes the speeches of hateful clerics appointed by the PA
justifying suicide bombings and Jew-killing. PA posters glorify suicide
bombers. We see official full day programs honoring terrorists, calling them
devoted brothers and heroes. We have seen the PA president and prime
minister visit terrorists or the homes of suicide bombers’ families,
mourning and praising them. We recently saw the Fatah Conference named in
honor of Amin Al-Hindi, mastermind of the Munich Olympics terrorist
operation.

We have even seen the PA honor Muhammad Fadlallah, responsible in the
Hizballah bombing that claimed the lives of 242 U.S. servicemen in 1982. How
can Obama support a state whose regime glorifies killers of Americans and
Israelis?

We see PA programs and hear PA videos extolling terrorism. We witness scores
of schools, streets and sports teams named after terrorists. We have even
seen U.S. aid money used to pave a street named after Saddam Hussein. We see
PA laws requiring a death sentence for anyone selling land to a Jew. We see
a Fatah emblem that drapes all of Israel in a keffiyah next to a rifle and
Yasser Arafat.

We have not seen any PA maps, official stationery or school atlases that
even show Israel within any borders. We have not seen the PA acknowledge the
Jewish religious and historical claim to the land, to Jerusalem, or even to
the Western Wall, the holiest of Judaism’s sites. To the contrary, we have
seen these repeatedly denied by high PA officials. We have not seen
terrorist groups outlawed, as required under the Oslo agreements.

Both Hamas and Fatah have vehemently protested a proposal by the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) to include
a small unit on the Holocaust as part of the human right curriculum in its
schools in the West Bank and Gaza.

Both Fatah and Hamas said the proposal to teach students about the Holocaust
was a “provocative act”, with Fatah expressing its opposition to teaching
the “enemy’s false claims and lies.”

Hamas alleged it would amount to a “cultural crime” and would pave the way
for normalization of ties with Israel, saying: “they [UNRWA] want us to
accept the tales and lies to win sympathy.”

And only two days ago in the New York Times Abbas published an Op-Ed filled
with vicious anti-Israel lies, where he explicitly proclaimed that a
Palestinian state will be formed not to have peace with Israel but to more
effectively continue the war against Israel. He wrote “Palestine’s
admission to the U.N. would pave the way for the internationalization of the
conflict as a legal mater, not only a political one. It would also pave the
way for us to pursue claims against Israel at the United Nations, human
rights treaty bodies and the International Court of Justice.”

Polls show that 90% of Palestinians under 25 and 75% over 25 don’t accept
Israel’s existence. Only 13% of Palestinians support educating Palestinian
children for peace. Another poll informs us that 85% of Palestinians don’t
want peace if it means compromise on borders or settlements or Jerusalem or
the Israel-destroying ‘right of return.’ This very month a PEW poll shows
68% of Palestinians support suicide bombing. This terrifying incitement
works.

Jewish settlements that encompass only 5% of the West Bank are not the
problem. There were no Jewish communities in the West Bank before 1967, yet
there was no peace or acceptance of Israel. We do not believe that peace can
be built by creating a Palestinian state that is Jew-free. We have therefore
been deeply concerned to hear Mr. Abbas and his officials say on more than
one occasion that not even one Jew will be permitted to live in a
Palestinian state.

The ZOA is also deeply concerned that most Christians have been driven from
Bethlehem because their lives have been made miserable under PA rule.
Christians in Gaza have also fled rather than live under Hamas. A PA united
with Hamas, with this record behind it, indicate that establishing a
Palestinian state at this time would likely create a terrorist state,
further destabilizing the Middle East.

Yet President Obama mindlessly and shockingly ignores all this vile hatred,
vile actions, and continuing threats. The last thing the world needs, Mr.
Obama, is another Islamist terrorist state.

As Israeli MK Avi Dichter, former Israeli Minister of Security, wrote on May
13 in the Washington Times, “A primary goal of Hamas is to rebuild the West
Bank terrorist network that Israeli security services have dismantled over
the past decade. Hamas particularly desires this territory because of its
proximity to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport and other Israeli
cities.

“Under the new Palestinian unity government, Hamas will have ease in
implementing its West Bank desires. The group will infuse Judea and Samaria
with a jihadist culture reminiscent of the Second Intifada, in which
hundreds of Israelis were murdered and thousands wounded.

“Israel must prevent this at all costs.

“Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, we have not received quiet but
rather thousands of rockets and mortars fired into our civilian towns. If
Hamas is allowed to expand into the West Bank, it will create another
terrorist base – this time bordering Jerusalem and Israel’s central Tel Aviv
region.”

As Congressman Allen West (R-FL) of Florida said today, “Today’s endorsement
by President Barack Obama of the creation of a Hamas-led Palestinian state
based on the pre-1967 borders, signals the most egregious foreign policy
decision his administration has made to date, and could be the beginning of
the end as we know it for the Jewish state.

“America should never negotiate with the Palestinian Authority – which has
aligned itself with Hamas. Palestine is a region, not a people or a modern
state. Based upon Roman Emperor Hadrian’s declaration in 73 AD, the
original Palestinian people are the Jewish people.

“It’s time for the American people to stand by our strongest ally, the
Jewish State of Israel, and reject this foreign policy blunder of epic
proportions.

“President Obama has not stood for Israel or the Jewish people and has made
it clear where the United States will stand when Palestine attempts to gain
recognition of statehood by the United Nations. The President should focus
on the real obstacle to security – the Palestinian leadership and its
ultimate goal to eliminate Israel and the Jewish people.”

ZOA President Morton A. Klein said, “President Obama’s speech simply rewards
terrorism and the PA refusal to negotiate until they receive everything
upfront.

“This unprecedented move and blunder will not make the Palestinians any more
supportive of Israel, any less inclined to violence against Israel, and any
less inclined to work for Israel’s destruction, and any less hostile to the
West.

“President Obama has severely harmed Israel’s interests and America’s
interests.

“Today, we are ashamed of and frightened by America’s policy regarding
Israel. The ZOA prediction several years ago that President Obama will
become the most hostile president to Israel ever, has come true.

“Helen Thomas, Rashid Khalidi, Ali Abuneimah, J Street, and George Soros,
and every anti-Semite in America, are surely thrilled by this speech. “All
those who love peace, justice, and Israel – are not.”

We urge friends of Israel and enemies of Islamist terrorism to contact your
Members of Congress to fight against Obama’s anti-Israel policy.