Official Palestinian authority media: Abbas’s own Fatah killed ‘settlers’

The Fateh-led Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) took credit for a drive by murder of two young women and a fourteen year old boy at a bus stop today just south of Bethlehem, at the Etzion junction which lies at the heart of 16 Jewish communities in the Etzion bloc of Israeli Jewish communities located just south of Bethlehem

The Fateh also took credit for a second attack that took place on the Jerusalem-Nablus road, also in the west bank, causing injuries to two young people.

Voice of Palestine Radio, the official voice of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, declared Sunday night that both of today’s attacks on Israelis were carried out by members of the Fatah organization headed by PLO leader Abbas.

“Both armed attacks were carried out by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades which are part of the Fatah Movement,” asserted Voice of Palestine, which, along with the other Palestinian media stressed that the attacks were on “mustawtaneen”-the Arabic word for settlers.

The murders were not condemned by the official Palestinian media nor any Palestinian officials who have generally called such previous attacks on “settlers” a legitimate form “resistance” to occupation.

Abbas and his aides also did not condemn the kidnap murder three weeks ago of a Jerusalem man, Sasson Nuriel, who was tortured by Palestinian terrorists from the Hamas organization and then made to read a “confession” that was filmed and distributed on Hamas websites.

Indeed, official Mosque addresses as well television and radio shows during recent weeks have been depicting Israelis and Americans as murderers and as victimizers of Muslims, highlighting the need for more “resistance” [muqawwama], “fighting” [kifaah] and “active struggle” [nidaal].

Meanwhile, on Friday, President Bush extended a waiver to the congressionally mandated downgrade in the status of the Fateh Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Office* in the United States with an October 14, 2005 memorandum to the secretary of state.

The waiver is effective for 180 days.

The downgrade of the PLO office was mandated in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987.

Implementation of that provision of the law has been delayed because of “U.S. national security interests”, according to the memorandum.

Without that waiver, the PLO would not be able to maintain an office (i.e., a presence) in the U.S.

If an organization registered in the US proudly took credit for murdering people in cold blood because they had black skin, there would be a public outcry to close down that office.

*The PLO office in Washington is located at 888 16th Street, 7th FLoor, at the office of Bannerman associates, and run by Edward Abington, who served at the US COnsul in Jerusalem, 1993-1997.Abington was directly responsible for opening up the vistas of US aid for the PLO’s Palestinian Authority during his term of office. The day after he left his office, he became the PLO lobbyist in DC, registered as a foreign agent of the PLO.