Zionist Organization of America Press Release, October 6, 2006.

Abu Ahmed, a senior Fatah member and leader in northern Gaza of its Al Aqsa
Martyrs Brigade, an organization listed on the US State Department terrorism
list, has publicly admitted that Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud
Abbas’ stated recognition of Israel’s right to exist is part of a “political
calculation” aimed at ultimately destroying the Jewish state.

Abu Ahmed said that the Fatah party, of which Mahmoud Abbas is leader, does
not recognize Israel and that any final accord that doesn’t include flooding the
Jewish state with millions of Palestinians will not be supported by the Fatah
party and will lead to a Palestinian civil war. “The base of our Fatah movement
keeps dreaming of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa and Acco [Acre] … There is no change
in our position. Abbas recognizes Israel because of pressure that the Zionists
and the Americans are exercising on him. We understand this is part of his
obligations and political calculations.”

Abu Ahmed also explained that Fatah itself has never even officially recognized
Israel. “It is the PLO, which is a separate entity, that recognized Israel, and this
was a step, a tactical step that had as its goal to bring the resistance and the
revolution closer to the lands of Palestine … There is an opportunistic class at
the head of the Fatah leadership that for personal and political interests says it
accepts the existence of Israel. There is no change in our official position. Fatah
as a movement never recognized Israel. It is the PLO who did so for the reasons
I mentioned.”

Abu Ahmed also clarified that the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is “one and the
same” with the Fatah party, in striking contradiction to the position of the US
State Department which, while considering it a terrorist organization, regards it
“separate” from Abbas’ Fatah party (World Net Daily, October 4).

Together with the Islamic Jihad terror group, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has
taken responsibility for every suicide bombing inside Israel in the past two
years, including an attack in Tel Aviv in April that killed an American teenager
and nine Israelis. The Brigades also has carried out scores of deadly shooting
and rocket attacks against Israeli civilians in recent months.

Fatah itself was co-founded by Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, who served
for 40 years as Arafat’s trusted deputy, masterminded the Munich massacre
and wrote a PhD and later a book denying the Holocaust.

As PA president, Abbas has refused to honor the signed Oslo
agreements and the 2003 Roadmap peace plan which requires him to fight,
arrest, extradite and jail terrorists and confiscate their weaponry and end the
incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools
and youth camps that feeds it.

Abbas is a long-standing supporter of the so-called ‘right of return’ of
Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants to Israel, a measure that
would see Israel overwhelmed by hostile aliens and is therefore inimical to its
existence.

In recent months, Abbas endorsed the so-called ‘Prisoners’ Plan’, a document
produced by jailed Palestinian terrorists that endorses continued terrorism
against Israel, legitimizes the murder of Jews, does not accept Israel’s
existence as a Jewish state, abrogates Palestinian obligations under the signed
Oslo agreements and the 2003 Roadmap peace plan, and insists on the ‘right of
return’.

He has also attempted to form a unity government with Hamas, whose Charter
calls for the destruction of Israel (Article 15) and the murder of Jews (Article 7).
Last December, Abbas approved legislation mandating financial benefits to be
paid to families of Palestinian shahids [i.e., dead terrorists].

Some statements by Mahmoud Abbas:

* Praised the Lebanese Islamist terrorist group, Hizballah, for its hostilities with
Israel, saying that it is a source of pride and sets an example for what he
termed the “Arab resistance”.

( Jerusalem Post, August 6, 2006).

* Condemned Israel’s killing of four Palestinian terrorists in a military operation as
a “barbarous slaughter”.

( Voice of Palestine, May 30, 2006).

* Opposes terrorism only on tactical grounds, because “It harms the Palestinian
interests.” (New York Times, October 26, 2005) and for its timing, not because
it a crime,

“I say to them [the terrorists], this is not the time for this kind of attack”.
( Washington Times, January 3, 2005).

* Refused to fight and dismantle Palestinian terrorist groups, saying that is a “red
ine” that must not be crossed.

(Washington Times, January 3, 2005).

* Described wanted Palestinian terrorists “heroes fighting for freedom.” (The Age
[Melbourne], January 3, 2005) and stated, “Israel calls them murderers, we call
them strugglers”. (Jerusalem Post, December 25, 2004).

He has also said of suicide bombers, “Allah loves the martyr”. (Wall
Street Journal, January 5, 2005) Described Israel as the “Zionist enemy”. (
CNN.com, January 7, 2005).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “The revealing admission by
Fatah/Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade senior leader Abu Ahmed that Fatah does not
actually accept Israel’s existence and that the terrorist Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade
is part and parcel of Fatah, should dispose once and for all of the fiction that
Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah are moderates who accept Israel and with whom
Israel and the world can negotiate.

In fact, Abbas is an unreconstructed extremist, basically Yasser Arafat in
a suit, and Fatah is simply the doyen of Palestinian terrorist movements which
continues to murder Israelis up to this day. We therefore urge both the Israeli
and US governments to sever all ties with this terrorist regime and to abandon
the fiction that Abbas and Fatah are moderate, realistic negotiating partners.

In line with this, we urge the Bush Administration to instruct the State
Department that it will no longer accept the spurious distinction between a
“moderate” Fatah and the “terrorist” Al-Aqsa martyrs Brigade.”