PLO’s Claim that Jews Not Linked to Bibical Israelites is Latest of PLO’s Many Lies

July 11, 1997

PLO Television’s false claim that today’s Jews have no
connection to the ancient Israelites of the Bible “is a disgraceful and
patently fraudulent attempt to sever the link between the Jewish people and
the Land of Israel,” said Morton A. Klein, National President of the
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). “This violates the Oslo accord by
challenging Israel’s very right to exist, and it incites Arabs to seek
Israel’s elimination.”

The program broadcast on PLO Television, in June, featured
Palestinian Arab historian Jarid al-Kidwa, who claimed that “all the events
surrounding Kings Saul, David and Rehoboam occurred in Yemen, and no Hebrew
remnants were found in Israel, for a very simple reason–because they were
never here.” Al-Kidwa said: “Most of the Khazars [a Turkish tribe that
converted to Judaism in medieval times] are the Ashkenazic Jews who arrived
in Palestine. As Allah is my witness, in my blood flows more of the
Children of Israel and the ancient Hebrews than in the blood of Ariel
Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu.”

According to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz (July 6, 1997), al- Kidwa
also said: “The stories of the Torah and the Bible did not take place in
the Land of Israel–they occurred in the Arabian peninsula, primarily in
Yemen. The identity of our father Ibrahim [Abraham] who is mentioned in
the Koran is clear. From the Koran’s description of him it arises that he
lived in the southern Hejaz [Saudi arabia], near Mecca.”

ZOA president Morton A. Klein said: “Yasir Arafat has not condemned
the latest PLO lie denying any link between modern Jews and the Biblical
Israelites, which openly disparages basic Jewish beliefs. Arafat seems to
have learned well from other dictators, who understood that the bigger the
lie, and the more frequently it is repeated, the more people will believe
it. Arafat must order a halt to the spreading of
these lies, and he must publicly apologize to World Jewry.”

Other anti-Israel fabrications that Arafat and the PLO have
circulated include:

• Abdel Hamid al-Qudsi, Deputy Minister of the PLO’s Palestinian
  Authority Ministry of Supplies, declared: “Israel is distributing food
  containing material that causes cancer and hormones that harm male virility
  and other spoiled food products in the Palestinian Authority’s territories
  in order to poison and harm the Palestinian population. We absolutely feel
  that it is an organized plan and conspiracy which is under the auspices of
  the Israel Defense Forces this is a planned and initiated war against the
  Palestinian people.” (Yediot Ahronot, June 25, 1997)

• A Palestinian Arab prisoner who claimed to be a Shin Bet agent
  was presented at a press conference organized by the PLO police in Gaza on
  May 4, 1997. The prisoner, Ibrahim Halabi, claimed that the Shin Bet
  recruited him to carry out two recent attacks on Israeli school buses in
  Gaza, and gave him the explosives. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
  Netanyahu’s spokesman said the allegation was “a fabrication,” (N.Y. Times,
  May 5, 1997)

• “Allow me to remind you here of what the Israeli government is
  intent upon doing–and that is digging a tunnel under the western wall of
  Al Aqsa mosque.” (Yasir Arafat, speech to the Organization of the Islamic
  Conference, in Islamabad, Pakistan, March 23, 1997)

• “The Israeli authorities infected by injection 300 Palestinian
  children with the HIV virus during the years of the intifada.” (Nabil
  Ramlawi, the PLO representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Jerusalem
  Post, March 17, 1997)

• “Jerusalem is not a Jewish city, despite the biblical myth
  implanted in some minds…There is no tangible evidence of Jewish existence
  from the so-called ‘Temple Mount Era’…The location of the Temple Mount is
  in question…it might be in Jericho or somewhere else.” (Walid M. Awad,
  Director of Foreign Publications for the PLO’s Palestine Ministry of
  Information, interviewed by the IMRA news agency, Dec.25, 1996.)

• “Abraham was neither Jewish nor a Hebrew, but was simply an
  Iraqi. The Jews have no right to claim part of the Tomb of the Patriarchs
  in Hebron, Abraham’s resting place, as a synagogue. Rather, the whole
  building should be a mosque.” (Yasir Arafat, quoted in the Jerusalem
  Report, Dec. 26, 1996)

• “The Palestinian Authority is now claiming that Rachel’s Tomb in
  Bethlehem is the traditional tomb of the Cushite servant of Mohammed.” (Ha’aretz, Oct.9, 1996)

• “That is not the Western Wall at all, but a Moslem shrine.”
  (Yasir Arafat, quoted in Ma’ariv, Oct. 11, 1996)

• Regarding weapons in the hands of Arab terrorists, Arafat said,
  “These weapons could be obtained only from high authorities with great
  influence on the Israeli side.” (Jerusalem Post, March 22, 1996)

• “An unholy conspiracy of Israeli ‘fanatics’, who are members of
  a shadowy group of ex-IDF people called ‘OAS’, and Moslem extremists were
  behind [the Feb.1996] suicide bombings, PalestinianAuthority President
  Yasser Arafat told foreign diplomats…Arafat is known to have said last
  year, before [Ehud] Barak became [Israel's] foreign minister, that ‘Barak
  is one of the big bosses of the OAS’…” (Jerusalem Post, Feb.27, 1996)

• “The people of Israel realize perfectly well that they have no
  temples or ruins near Al Aqsa Mosque. According to the Koran, the people
  of Israel lived somewhere to the west of Bethlehem…they were living in
  Bethlehem and not in Jerusalem.” (Sheikh Ismail Jamal, the PLO’s Director
  of the Islamic Wakf in Jericho, quoted in the Chicago Jewish Sentinel, May
  18, 1995)

• Referring to the Arab terrorist attack in Beit Lid, in which22
  Israelis were killed, and other attacks in 1995, Arafat said, “I have
  evidences that these terrorist activities have been done through
  coordination between these fanatic Islamic groups and some elements on the
  Israeli side.” (Washington Post, May 2, 1995)

• Arafat once “convened a conference of the international press to
  claim that an imprint of an ancient Judean coin on the Israeli 10-agorot
  coin was Israel’s imperialistic expansion map. This coin, he said, shows
  that Israel plans to conquer Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and parts of Egypt and
  Saudi Arabia.” (Jerusalem Post, Feb. 22, 1995)

• “PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, in interviews published yesterday,
  accused IDF troops of aiding the spread of arms in the territories in a
  plot to create chaos in Palestinian self-rule areas…’This weapons trade
  is being carried out under the auspices of some Israeli officers in the
  West Bank and Gaza. This is part of a wicked plan’…” (Jerusalem Post,
  Feb. 18 & Feb. 19, 1994)

• “Israel has been using chemical weapons against Palestinians in
  the territories for 27 months with the support of the U.S. It’s not tear
  gas, it’s chemical weapons.” (Yasir Arafat, Jerusalem Post, April 1, 1990)