MK Michael Kleiner (Herut) says that the U.S. may not be as fair of a mediator as Israel sometimes thinks. \"According to the State Department\'s terrorism report,\" Kleiner notes, \"there were only about 8 terrorist attacks in Israel throughout all of 2001. This is simply an embarrassment. The report ignores 86 other attacks, including the murders of Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze\'evi and the infant Shalhevet Pass, as well as many mass killings.\" The report ignores, as Arutz-7 reported yesterday, the massacre outside Emanuel (11 killed), the plowing into a bus stop by a Palestinian bus driver (8 killed), and many other incidents. Close to 190 people were killed in Moslem Palestinian terrorism attacks against Israel in 2001, though one who reads the State Department\'s list would not know of 135 of them.
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) also has strong words against the report, as expressed in a letter to U.S. President Bush and Secretary of State Powell:
\"Once again, the State Department is misleading Congress and the American public by whitewashing Arafat\'s murder of Jews. Despite the capture... of Arafat\'s 50-ton ship of terror weapons [and] of truckloads of documents signed by Arafat in which he orders terrorism and pays individual terrorists, the State Department continues to pretend that Arafat is innocent. The State Department also ignores the culture of anti-Jewish hatred and violence in Arafat\'s school textbooks, in the 90 PA-sponsored summer camps, and in sermons by PA-appointed clergymen.
\"The State Department\'s policy... sends a message to Arafat and other Arab terrorists that the United States will tolerate his mass murder of Israeli men, women, and children, and that the U.S. will not respond strongly even to the murders of 29 of its own citizens by Palestinian Arab terrorists since 1993.
\"…[T]he Bush administration is, in effect, rewarding Arafat\'s terrorism by giving the Palestinian Arabs an extra $50 million (in addition to the annual $100 million) and by helping to prop up the Palestinian Authority police force, which itself is involved in perpetrating terrorism against Jews. This policy tramples President Bush\'s own doctrine of zero tolerance for terrorism, and actually increases the likelihood of terrorism against the U.S. and the rest of the West, for if suicide bombers succeed in Israel, they will inevitably strike in America as well.\"
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) also has strong words against the report, as expressed in a letter to U.S. President Bush and Secretary of State Powell:
\"Once again, the State Department is misleading Congress and the American public by whitewashing Arafat\'s murder of Jews. Despite the capture... of Arafat\'s 50-ton ship of terror weapons [and] of truckloads of documents signed by Arafat in which he orders terrorism and pays individual terrorists, the State Department continues to pretend that Arafat is innocent. The State Department also ignores the culture of anti-Jewish hatred and violence in Arafat\'s school textbooks, in the 90 PA-sponsored summer camps, and in sermons by PA-appointed clergymen.
\"The State Department\'s policy... sends a message to Arafat and other Arab terrorists that the United States will tolerate his mass murder of Israeli men, women, and children, and that the U.S. will not respond strongly even to the murders of 29 of its own citizens by Palestinian Arab terrorists since 1993.
\"…[T]he Bush administration is, in effect, rewarding Arafat\'s terrorism by giving the Palestinian Arabs an extra $50 million (in addition to the annual $100 million) and by helping to prop up the Palestinian Authority police force, which itself is involved in perpetrating terrorism against Jews. This policy tramples President Bush\'s own doctrine of zero tolerance for terrorism, and actually increases the likelihood of terrorism against the U.S. and the rest of the West, for if suicide bombers succeed in Israel, they will inevitably strike in America as well.\"