Mort Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, spoke at the IHF Arutz Sheva event in Manhattan and said that he thinks pro-Israel groups need to be more forceful in their advocacy.
“I think Israeli Jewish leaders and rabbis are not doing what needs to be done to help Israel and the Jewish people. We need to have our leaders tell the truth about the Arab-Islamic war against Israel. I speak in colleges all the time, and they tell me how horrible Israel is, how the Palestinian Arabs are wonderful people that just want to have a decent family life, they just want a state. We have to explain that the Palestinian Authority is a terrorist dictatorship. We have to explain that Mahmoud Abbas pays Palestinian Arabs a lifetime pension to murder Jews. They spend 400 million dollars a year doing this, and the more Jews they murder the larger their lifetime pension gets. Kids don't know this. Americans don't know this.”
Klein called for the facts of the Palestinian Authority to become a talking point: “This has to be said in every speech that a Jewish leader or an Israeli leader gives. They have to know that Abbas says, publicly and repeatedly, if there's a Palestinian State no Jew will be allowed to live there. Knowing these truths diminishes the support for the Palestinian Authority. They have to know that the Palestine Authority names schools and streets and sports teams and children's camps and sports tournaments after Jew-killers.”
Klein displayed the emblem of the Palestinian Authority, pointing out details: “This emblem should be shown all the time. This is the official emblem of the Palestinian Authority. It shows the shape of all of Israel with a kefiah over all of it - not just Judea and Samaria and Gaza and eastern Jerusalem, all of it - along with with a picture of [former PA chairman Yasser] Arafat and a rifle. Nobody has seen this, but this is their official emblem. When you show this it makes people understand they're not dealing with people who just want freedom and a decent life, but a terrorist dictatorship which has enormous hatred toward the Jewish people.”
The emblem was not the only image Klein displayed: “We also have to show them the posters!,” he insisted, holding up an example. “College students I show this are shocked that every Jew-hater has a poster made of him, like this one, calling him a hero and a martyr. This one happens to show Egged buses being blown up, with a Jewish star broken in pieces with blood flowing through it. They honor Jew-killers!”
“We have to reduce support for the Palestinian Authority by letting them know what a monstrous terrorist regime this is. When I give these speeches to college kids their support for the Palestinians drops. They become ashamed of supporting them and they understand Israel's predicament. Right now they do not understand this.”
Klein moved on to another point he feels needs to be emphasized more: “We also have to make it clear that the Palestinian Authority has been offered a state four times in the last twenty years, giving them virtually everything that they claim that they want, and yet they've turned it down every single time with no counter offers. We have to explain that statehood would not resolve the issue. This is a terrorist regime. North Korea is a state, Iran is a state, Syria is a state. That does not make them lovely places - they're terrible places.”
“When it comes to settlements and Jewish communities, we have to make it clear, as I do, that the Jewish community is only three percent of all Judea and Samaria. Israel has not built a single new community since Oslo began in 1993 - all the building is being done within the boundaries of the existing communities. The Palestinian Authority lies about Israel in every interview on radio and television. We Jews, we Israeli leaders, we rabbis, we Jewish leaders in America don't tell the truth about this.”
Klein concluded by discussing Jerusalem: “Finally this - Jerusalem. We have to make it clear that Jerusalem is not holy to Muslims! The word Jerusalem is is mentioned 700 times in the Jewish holy books. It's never mentioned in the Quran - how can it be holy to them? When they controlled Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967 they allowed it to be a slum. There was no running water and no electricity. They destroyed fifty-eight synagogues in the Jerusalem that they controlled. They say Muhammad went from Jerusalem to heaven. Muhammad went, if you believe the Quran, from the Farthest Mosque to Heaven. Jerusalem is not mentioned. How could the Farthest Mosque be in Jerusalem? When the Quran was written, there was not a single Mosque in Jerusalem, and so the Farthest Mosque could not have been there.”
“We have to tell these truths - that Jerusalem is not holy to Muslims, that Abbas is a monster who promotes and pays for murder, that statehood won't resolve anything, that they haven't even accepted it when it was offered, that the Palestinian Authority is a vicious Nazi-like terrorist dictatorship. We must reduce sympathy and support for the Palestinians, and this will elevate support and sympathy for the Jewish country of Israel.”