NEW YORK – The official
Palestinian Authority newspaper has accused the CIA of masterminding the Muslim
Chechnyan terrorist siege of a Moscow theater that resulted in the deaths of
118 hostages.

    Fuad Abu Hajleh, senior columnist for
the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah, wrote on October 29, 2002 that the CIA
masterminded the attack in response to Russia’s opposition in the UN to
American policy concerning Iraq:

    “President Putin’s
ambassador to the Security Council is threatening to vote against the
American’s proposed resolution to attack Iraq. This is how we view the
operation in the Moscow theater; we are of the opinion that the sympathy and
friendship that bond Washington to several Islamic movements in Europe, among
them the Chechens, cannot possibly be one-sided and there has to be some sort
of repayment of the American friendship by the Mujahedin of Chechnya, Bosnia,
Hercegovina and Kosovo. The CIA will never acknowledge its responsibility for
this operation which claimed over 170 lives, including those of the
perpetrators… However, the American message reached Moscow and was, perhaps,
read the same way by the decision makers in France, who oppose the American
pressure in the Security Council…we fear a recurrence of a bloody scene in
the capitol of [our] friends, the French. We hope they are preparing for such
an eventuality, lest it be Moscow first and Paris next.”


    The editorial is the latest in a series of
anti-American statements and actions by the Palestinian Arabs, which included
an October 23 cartoon in the PA-sponsored newspaper Al Ayam portraying
President Bush as the Washington, D.C. sniper; and two cartoons on September 11
in the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida mocking the victims of the 9/11 attack and
labeling them victims of “American hegemony.”
(Translations courtesy of
Palestinian Media Watch)

    For a free copy of the
ZOA’s report, Anti-American Statements and Actions by the Palestinian Arabs,
please call the ZOA at 212-481-1500.

    Morton A.
Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), said:
“CIA agents are currently stationed in Palestinian Authority territory,
training members of their terrorist ‘security forces’–yet the PA’s newspaper
spreads vicious anti-American libels. American taxpayers’ money should not be
used to finance this pro-terrorist, anti-American regime. The U.S. has been
giving the Palestinian Arabs more than $100-million each year–a total of
nearly $1-billion in aid since 1994. It would be fitting to take that aid and
give it to victims of terrorism instead.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 7th, 2002 and is filed under arabpress.