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Nations United Against Israel

Annan: Israel must trust safety to PA


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
July 13, 2004

Even as “Palestinians” were busy murdering another Israeli and wounding dozens more Sunday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan insisted Jerusalem abide by the rulings of the World Court and tear down its anti-terror fence.

“While we accept that the government of Israel has the responsibility and duty to protect its citizens, any action it takes has to be in conformity with international law,” Annan said.

As with most of the international community, Annan’s position has long been that Israel should place the security of its citizens in the hands of Yasser Arafat’s PLO, which he called on to increase efforts to foil future anti-Jewish terror attacks.

In typical fashion, however, Arafat sidestepped responsibility for Sunday’s attack by accusing Israel of planning and perpetrating the fatal Tel Aviv bombing. This despite the fact that his own Fatah Al Aqsa Brigades had claimed credit for the killing.

Meanwhile, a US court Monday ruled that Arafat’s regime was responsible for the deaths of at least one Israeli couple. The verdict reinforced arguments that the West’s formula of trusting the Palestinian Authority with the lives of Israel’s Jews was a deadly gamble that failed to protect their rights.

‘Tear down this wall’

Israel must respect the rulings of the International Court of Justice, UN chief Kofi Annan said Sunday, joining a chorus of Arab voices insisting the Jewish state adhere to the court’s decision that its security fence must come down.

“While we accept that the government of Israel has the responsibility and duty to protect its citizens, any action it takes has to be in conformity with international law,” Annan said.

Officials in Jerusalem have slammed the court for completely ignoring the reason Israel was forced to construct the fence, at great cost to itself, in the first place – “Palestinian” terrorism.

Tellingly, several of the nations that joined in bashing Israel’s fence have themselves erected barriers on disputed lands in order to keep Islamic terrorists out of their sovereign territories.

Jews’ lives in terrorists’ hands

Annan has long belonged to that part of the international community that insists the only legitimate form of security for Israel’s Jews is that provided by the Palestinian Authority.

The terms of the Oslo Accords obligate the PA to provide Israelis with security by disarming and dismantling the terrorist organizations operating out of territories under its control.

That commitment has never been fulfilled, leading to efforts by Israel to defend its citizens by launching anti-terror military operations, setting up roadblocks and now building a fence, all of which have been condemned by the world.

Following the death of a 19-year-old Israeli girl and the wounding of more than 30 others in a terrorist bombing in Tel Aviv Sunday, Annan issued his usual call for the PA to increase its non-existent efforts to curb future attacks.

Despicable claim

But PLO chief Yasser Arafat sidestepped responsibility for the attack by making the audacious claim that Israel itself had masterminding the fatal bombing in order to deflect international attention from the ICJ’s ruling on its fence.

"We are against such kinds of bombings, and you must never forget that the Israelis are completely behind it as they have been in the past,” the unrepentant terror chief told reporters outside his Ramallah headquarters.

"You know who is behind these acts, which are aimed at harming the court decision. Europe knows it, the Americans, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, and the Israelis also know it,” he said.

Terror’s patron

Meanwhile, a US district court ruled that far from providing security for Israeli Jews, Arafat’s regime had offered safe haven and even support to their bloodthirsty enemies.

District Court Judge Ronald Lagueux of Rhode Island Monday upheld an earlier decision that found the PA and PLO guilty of affording the Hamas terrorist organization an operational base from which it murdered US citizen Yaron Unger and his wife, Efrat, in 1996.

The Ungers were shot dead near the town of Bet Shemesh while driving home from a wedding. They were survived by two young sons.

Lagueux ordered the PA/PLO to pay damages to the Unger family in the amount of $116 million. The “Palestinian” leadership is not expected to pay, nor is the US government likely to allow the family to dip into frozen PA funds due to “political” considerations.

Evidence unearthed by the IDF during anti-terror operations over the past four years has shown ongoing PA toleration for and even financing of terrorist activity.

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