TALE OF TWO "FRAUDS"
By FERN SIDMAN
There are many frauds in this world. Everyday we are being deluged with all
kinds of impostors, impersonators, scam artists, liars, cheats and thieves.
We also get our fair share of phony deals, unreal concepts and ideas that
could headline in the teather of the absurd.
Today, the latest fraud that is being foisted upon us is the Bush
administration's Roadmap to Peace. As we know this plan would call for a
complete cessation of all Jewish settlements being built in Judea, Samaria
and Gaza and would call for the Palestinians, under the leadership of their
new Prime Minister Mahoud Abbas, a/ka Abu Mazen to call for a complete
cessation of all terror attacks against Israelis.
Just yesterday, Mr. Mazen was sworn in as the prime minister of the
Palestinian people. Just hours later a Palestinian suicide bomber blew
himself up outside a popular Tel Aviv nightspot called Mike's Place,
conveniently located next to the US Embassy. This terror attack left 4 dead
and over 55 severely wounded. A woman who was in a pub next door described a
scene of horror and panic. ''I saw people running away in flames, some
without skin,'' she told Israeli television.
Blood and body parts smeared the club's shattered entrance. The bomber's
black coat was left dangling from beams over the door with a bloodied hand
sticking out of one sleeve. So much for Arab promises of peace.
Hamas, one of the militant groups behind the attack, quickly rejected the
''road map'' aimed at ending 31 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence and
vowed to keep up its campaign of bombings in defiance of the new Palestinian
prime minister.
The explosion just hours earlier on the Tel Aviv beachfront raised questions
about the revamped Palestinian government's ability to rein in militants, a
crucial demand set out in the long-delayed peace plan.
Though the road map marks Washington's biggest push to revive peacemaking
since Israel reoccupied most of the West Bank last summer, many analysts say
it will be hard to overcome the sharp differences and deep distrust between
the two sides.
President Bush finally directed the release of the road map, which calls for
a Palestinian state by 2005, after Palestinians swore in a new cabinet led by
reformist Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, a leading moderate.
U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer presented a copy of the plan, drawn up by the
United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, to Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem. Other members of the international
''Quartet'' handed the document to Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The flurry of diplomatic activity began shortly after the suicide bomber
struck in Tel Aviv.
Just as this roadmap to peace is in actuality a roadmap to destruction,
devastation and dysphoria for the Jewish people, we also need to investigate
the past of Abu Mazen, the man that president Bush called, "a man dedicated
to peace".
The Israeli civil rights group Shurat Hadin has announced a campaign to
convince US and German law enforcement agencies to open an investigation into
Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen in the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the
1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.
In September 5, 1972, a squad of heavily armed Palestinian terrorists
attacked the dormitories housing the Israeli Olympic team and murdered a
coach and weight-lifter David Berger, who was an American citizen. The
terrorists then took nine Israeli athletes hostage. While the terrorists and
their hostages were transported to the airport, the German police botched a
rescue attempt and all nine of the athletes were murdered.
The director of Shurat Hadin, attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, sent letters
this week to US President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder containing new information indicating that Abu Mazen provided
financing to the PLO's Black September terrorist group, in order to carry out
the notorious terrorist attack at the 1972 Olympic Games.
While recent newsmedia profiles of Abu Mazen have accentuated the Palestinian
leader's alleged "terrorism-free" personal history, the Shurat Hadin charges
that in 1972, Abu Mazen, then a high ranking PLO official, provided financing
for the terrorist attacks being perpetuated by Yassir Arafat's PLO faction
Fatah under the nom de guerre Black September.
Shurat Hadin is basing its information on published statements by the
terrorist who masterminded the the Munich attack, Mohammed Daoud Oudeh ("Abu
Daoud"). In his French-language autobiography, Palestine: From Jerusalem to
Munich, Abu Daoud describes the role of Abu Mazen in providing the funds to
carry out the Black September Olympic attack.
Furthermore, in an interview with journalist Don Yaeger of Sports
Illustrated Magazine in August 2002, Abu Daoud reiterated his charges that
Abu Mazen supplied the money for the deadly attack.
In his memoir Abu Daoud states:
"After Oslo in 1993, Abu Mazen went to the White House Rose Garden for a
photo op with Arafat, President Bill Clinton and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and
Shimon Peres.
"Do you think that ... would have been possible if the Israelis had known
that Abu Mazen was the financier of our operation?" Abu Daoud writes. "I
doubt it." Today, the Bush Administration seeks a Palestinian negotiating
partner "uncompromised by terror," yet last year Abu Mazen met in Washington
with Secretary of State Colin Powell."
Abu Daoud's allegations have been confirm by sources within the Palestinian
Authority, according to Shurat Hadin.
Attorney Darshan-Leitner's letter to President Bush states: "Under your
leadership the United States has declared that it will no longer maintain
contacts with those tainted by terrorist pasts. It appears that the new
Palestinian leader, on whom the United States and Israel are now pinning
their hopes, was also involved in murderous attacks perpetrated by the PLO's
Black September. If proven true, Abu Mazen's role in the brutal killing of
the Israeli athletes and American citizen David Berger must preclude his
involvement in the negotiations between the United States, Israel and her
Arab neighbors."
Both Germany and Israel still have the legal jurisdiction to prosecute those
involved in the Munich Olympic killings.
So once again, another fraud is being perpetrated. This new Palestinian
Prime Minister can get on the back of a very long line of Palestinian frauds
and liars. Of course, the number one spot still belongs to Arafat. So much
for this Roadmap to Peace, so much for any hope of peace under the leadership
of Abu Mazen.
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