- Ahmad El-Sukar was the Arab terrorist responsible for the murder of 14 and maiming 70 in a Zion Square bombing, when he placed a refrigerator bomb there on July 4, 1975.
I was there in Zion Square that day, guiding a student group who witnessed the massacre.
My social work teacher. Mira Berger, was one of the people who was murdered that day.
Mira’s profession was working with concentration camp survivors, thirty years after World War II.
El Sukar, had lived in Chicago for many years under the cover of a businessman, and returned to his village near Ramallah in the mid-sixties, where he became active in the Fateh.
El Sukar was apprehended and sentenced to 14 life sentences.
Abu Mazen and Arafat had made a special request of US Sec’y of State Colin Powell to free El- Sukar, because of their special relationship with El Sukar, which spans more than fifty years.
And Israel freed El-Sukar, 28 years after his crime. He signed a declaration that he would not engage in terror or incite to terror. The declaration also stated that if he violated the declaration that he understood Israel could put him back in prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence… “.
I specifically asked the spokesman of the Israeli Prime Minister on the day of El-Sukar’s release if the return to terror would mean his endorsement of terror activity on the official media of the PA.
The PM spokesman responded in absolute terms, saying that if El Sukar would incite to murder, then he would be re-arrested. After all, since El-Sukar, at age 68, might not be able to schlep refrigerators, he might inspire others to emulate his act.
And yet, only a few weeks after his release, El-Sukar called for the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers at a rally in Bethlehem that was widely reported on Palestinian Authority radio and Palestinian Authority TV, reminding the crowd that “in return for three soldiers, Israel released 1,150 prisoners in the famous (Jibril) exchange.” He also praised the Palestinians for killing one Jew for every three Palestinians killed –
On August 7th, a meeting was held at the office of the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the PM office director raised the concerns brought to him by journalists that El Sukar had violated the terms of his release by demanding that Arabs kidnap IDF soldiers
The PM office has said that the matter of re-arresting El Sukar would now be discussed.
As Dr. Aaron Lerner, the director of IMRA has pointed out, “When El-Sukar suggested that soldiers be kidnapped and praised the murder of Israelis he incited for terror. And when he incited for terror he violated the terms of his release. And when he violated the terms of his release, the sovereign State of Israel should have issued a warrant for is arrest But Israel hasn’t. And El-Sukar knows this. And so do all the terrorists who signed similar declarations this week before they went home to prepare for the next round”.
Israel’s sovereignty hangs in the balance, and so does its commitment to protect its citizens from PLO Arab terrorists to incite to murder.
The question is whether Israel’s Prime Minister will stand up to the US and the PLO to remove a murderer from the airwaves of the Voice of Palestine.
Israel’s independence is on the line.