Congressmen back Israel in war on terrorism
By Melissa Radler
March, 22 2002
WASHINGTON (March 22) - A group of US senators and congressmen slammed the Palestinian Authority and its chairman, Yasser Arafat, for failing to stop terrorism and pledged its full support for Israel's retaliatory measures.
At a demonstration in Washington organized by the Zionist Organization of America, Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Shelley Berkley (D-Nevada), and Mike Pence (R-Indiana) compared Israel's fight against Palestinian terrorism to the US war against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. They also expressed their dismay Israel's retaliatory actions and attempts to stop terror at its source are being termed by US officials, including President George W. Bush, as unhelpful.
Other officials, including Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), stopped by the rally to express support.
The State Department's "moral equivalence between Arafat's intentional murder of civilians and Israel's retaliation" was condemned by Pence, while Engel said US officials should not meet with Arafat while terror emanating from PA-controlled territory continues.
Gary Bauer, undersecretary for education in the Reagan administration and now president of American Values, pledged greater public support for Israel from the evangelical Christian community.
"If the US can properly and rightly go 10,000 miles across the world to fight Islamic terrorism in Afghanistan, Israel should be permitted to go across the street to fight Islamic terrorists that murder its citizens every day," Zionist Organization of America president Morton Klein said.
Meanwhile, Rep. Ben Gilman (R-NY), chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said a prospective meeting between Arafat and Vice President Dick Cheney would be "inappropriate" in light of suicide bombings this week in Wadi Ara and Jerusalem.
"These latest barbaric attacks by a Palestinian suicide terrorist against innocent civilians in central Jerusalem are a further egregious demonstration of Yasser Arafat's failure to control the violence, his lack of commitment to peaceful negotiation of differences, and, once again, raise the question of the relevancy of his leadership," he said in a statement.
jpost.com
Goddamit, Len! Where are Senators LEAHY and DASCHLE when Israel needs them??? Didn't they get the message? DO THEY NEED MORE ANTHRAX??? |
