Since the terrorist bombings at the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya mad Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania, President Clinton and officials of his administration have been vehemently proclaiming that terrorists who murder U.S. citizens will be pursued to the ends of the earth.

This pledge was similar to the platform Clinton had presented to an anti-terrorism summit meeting of world leaders held at Sharm El-Sheik in March 1996. I covered that conference that was hastily organized after Palestinian bus bombings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv took the lives of more than seventy people and threatened to scuttle the peace process.

Indeed, rather than in mere rhetoric, what effort did the Clinton administration make to “bring to justice” the terrorist-murders of American citizens who were among those who were murdered in terror attacks that were perpetrated by Palestinians:

Leon Klinghoffer, 76, a U.S. citizen, was a passenger aboard the Italian cruise ship “Achille Lauro” when it was hijacked by Arab terrorists in 1985. Mr Klinghoffer, who had been disabled by a stroke, was in a wheelchair. The terrorists, under the command of Abu Abbas, shot him and threw his body overboard still in the wheelchair. The PLO spokesman at the United Nations suggested that Mrs. Klinghoffer had murdered her crippled husband for the insurance money.

Abu Abbas himself has most recently been awarded asylum under the personal protection of Palestine Authority chairman Yassir Arafat, without the slightest protest from the US, even though he is still wanted for murder by the United States and Italy

Upon his arrival to Gaza, Abbas gave an interview to Reuters in which he explained that he ordered Klinghoffer to be shot because, even confined to a wheelchair, he was “making trouble” for the terrorist-hijackers.

Nachshon Wachsman, 19, a U.S. citizen, was kidnapped by Hamas in 1994, held hostage and finally killed. President Clinton met his parents, U.S. citizens Yehuda and Esther Wachsman, at Nachshon’s grave on Mt. Herzl, on the day after the anti-terrorism summit in Sharm El Sheikh. Clinton placed a stone, as is the Jewish custom, at Nachshon’s graveside. When the President asked Esther Wachsman what he could do to comfort her at this time of mourning, and she replied that wanted to know about U.S. government pursuit of Muhammad Deif, the Hamas leader who had planned the kidnapping and death of her son.

Clinton replied that the arrest of Deif and his transfer to U.S. custody was the highest priority of the U.S. government, and that Deif was a most-wanted criminal by the U.S. legal authorities.

Deif was also free in Gaza, under the control of the Palestine Authority, and President Clinton stated that Israel should not proceed with the surrender of Hebron to the PA until Arafat surrendered Deif.

Four months later, the head of the PA police force in Gaza informed Yehuda Wachsman that there were strict orders from Arafat not to arrest Deif.

Muhammad Deif is still free in Gaza. There is no record that Clinton or the U.S. State Department has ever called upon Arafat to arrest Deif or to hand him over ro stand trial in Gaza, Israel or the US.

When a journalist asked US Secretary of State Madeline Albright about this, she said that she had never heard of Deif.

Alisa Flatow, 20, a U.S. citizen, was studying in Israel when she was one of seven people murdered in the bombing of a bus by Islamic Jihad terrorists in 1995. President Clinton assured her father, Stephen M. Flatow, that he would fulfill his obligation to the slain American girl by pursuing the arrest and conviction of the murderers.

Today, however, Steve Flatow has trouble getting any information from the Clinton administration concerning the whereabouts of his daughter’s killers.

Yet Nabil Sharihi, accused by Israel and even by the Palestine Authority of taking part in this terror attack, was detained only briefly by the PA, not put on trial, not in the Palestine Aurhoity, not in Israel and not in the United States.

Meanwhile, the AP reported that he had been set free by the PA

Joan Davenny, 45, a U.S. citizen, was a school-teacher in Connecticut. She was on a visit to Israel when she was one of six people murdered in the bombing of a bus in Jerusalem by Hamas terrorists in 1995.

Abd al-Majid Dudin, accused by Israel of participation in preparing this act of terrorism, is living within the PA.

Israeli requests to the Palestine Authority for his arrest have been ignored.

The US has made no such request.

David Boim, U.S. citizen, was murdered in 1996, shot by two Arab terrorists while he was waiting for a school bus. He was 17 years old.

His parents, Stanley and Joyce Boim, both U.S. citizens, were assured by U.S. ambassador Martin Indyk that Imjad HaNawi, one of the killers, had been arrested by Arafat’s police, but the PA would not confirm this.

Indyk also said that the PA police were in pursuit of the second killer.

The PA also denied this.

Imjad HaNawi was not arrested by Arafat’s police until February 1998, after Joyce Boim had made four visits to Capitol Hill.

HaNawi was convicted in a Palestinian court of law as a accmplice in the murder of David Boim, and sentenced to ten years of hard labor.

However, the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem cannot confirm whether HaNawi is still in jail or not.

Matthew Eisenfeld, U.S. citizen, was a theology student when he was murdered in a Hamas bombing of a Jerusalem bus in 1996. He was then 25 years old. Sara Duker, U.S. citizen, was murdered in that same terrorist bombing. She was then 22 years old, and engaged to be married to Matthew Eisenfeld.

Nafez Sabih, believed to have taken part in the preparation of this terrorist bomb, has taken refuge within territory controlled by the Palestine Authority. Israeli requests to the Palestine Authority for his arrest have been ignored.

The US has made no such request.

Yael Botwin, U.S. citizen, age 14 was among the four teenagers murdered in an Arab-terrorist attack in Jerusalem in September, 1997. The perpetrator of that attack was the second of the two men who had murdered David Boim.

The question remains: As a matter of policy, is the Clinton Administration really prepared to take action against terrorist-murderers of U.S. citizens, even when the identities and whereabouts of these killers of U.S. citizens are known to the US government.

So far, the Clinton record has registered no official protest against those who have sheltered and harbored those who have murdered American citizens.

It would seem that President Bill Clinton is committed to pursing terrorists to the end of a soundbyte.

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