PA Terrorist Coddler
Abbas’ record harboring thugs
IWILL never forget President George W. Bush’s stirring address to Congress following the 9/11 attacks, explaining why the United States was going to take military action against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan: “From this day forward,” he announced, “any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”
Yet next week, a foreign leader who “harbors or supports terrorism” will visit the White House. And instead of being regarded as the head of “a hostile regime,” he will be showered with American diplomatic and economic assistance. Does that make sense?
The White House will roll out the red carpet for Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday. He will be treated as an international statesman.
There will be discussions of new concessions that Israel will be pressured to make to him. And already there are media reports that while US aid to many countries is being reduced, aid to the Palestin- ian Authority actually will be increased.
Meanwhile, just days before Abbas departs for the United States, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is on the official US list of terrorist groups, staged a public rally in PA-controlled Yatta, near Hebron. Brigade members, dressed in battle fatigues and masks, fired their weapons in the air at last Wednesday’s event.
The US-trained and -funded PA security forces did not intervene to stop the terrorists from publicly displaying and using their weapons.
But maybe that’s no surprise, since the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is a division of Fatah, which is the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization — and Abbas is also the chairman of Fatah and the PLO.
Think about that for a moment. Abbas is scheduled to receive more than $200 million in US aid this year, even though he is head of a movement that includes a group on the US terrorist list.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade op- erates freely under Abbas. Its training camps function without hindrance. Its weapons depots are not confiscated. Its safe houses are not shut down. Its members are not jailed.
And Al Aqsa is not the only terror group that Abbas harbors. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestine Liberation Front are still members in good standing of Abbas’ PLO. He has never outlawed them or jailed their members.
Moreover, Israel has filed 36 requests with the PA for the extradition of terrorists involved in specific attacks including the one in which my daughter Alisa was murdered — and the PA has ignored every one of those requests (even though the Oslo accords require the PA to hand them over).
And never mind its terroristgroup subsidiaries; the PA itself channels payments to terrorists and its families — though sometimes through intermediaries — even as it pockets millions in US aid. That means, in effect, US taxpayers’ dollars are going into the pockets of Palestinians who have committed acts of terror, or to their families.
We sometimes forget that the reason the United States invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban regime was not because the Taliban was itself involved in terrorism — it’s not even included on the US list of terrorist groups — but because it provided safe haven to al Qaeda.
“Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists,” Bush declared. “By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder.”
By harboring terrorists, Mahmoud Abbas is behaving exactly like the Taliban. It’s time the United States started treating him as such.