The Zionist Organization of America said it "strongly opposes" the request President George W. Bush made in his Feb. 2 State of the Union message for $350 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority.

“It is breathtaking and heartbreaking to see that a well-intentioned President Bush is making all the same mistakes in dealing with the PA regime as did the Clinton administration," ZOA President Morton Klein said in a news release. "Under the Oslo agreement 11 years ago, Arafat and the PA agreed to dismantle and disarm the terror groups, arrest terrorists (including dozens of Palestinian Arab killers of 52 Americans; just recently – 3 U.S. envoys were murdered in Gaza), end the promotion of hatred and murder of Jews in their media, schools, and speeches, and recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, in order to receive Israeli land concessions and US funds. 

"When Arafat did none of those things, Clinton ignored it and did not hold him accountable, provided US funds, pressed Israel for land concessions, and gave international legitimacy to a terrorist," Klein continued. "Arafat and his terrorist cronies learned they never had to take American demands seriously. Now, Arafat’s 40-year deputy and successor (Mahmoud) Abbas has followed in Arafat’s footsteps by fulfilling none of his obligations, while calling Israel the 'Zionist enemy,' calling suicide bombers 'heroes,' calling for a 'big Jihad,' and proudly expressing his duty to 'implement Arafat’s policies,' all in the last month – yet Bush ignores all this, praises Abbas and the Palestinian Authority and rewards him with a dramatic increase in aid. Now Abbas and his terrorist cronies have also learned not to take American demands seriously." 

On a more personal note, Klein said that "as a child of Holocaust survivors born in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany," he finds it "especially painful to see the respect and credibility given to Mahmoud Abbas despite the fact that he has written his Ph.D. thesis in 1982 at Moscow Oriental College openly denying the Holocaust. He followed this with a book in 1984 entitled, The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement, where he stated 'only a few hundred thousand Jews' died during the Holocaust, and that the gas chambers were not used to kill people."

Klein said Abbas also wrote that Zionists secretly collaborated in the killing of European Jews to create sympathy for the creation of Israel.        —Donald H. Harrison