ZOA: After Merger, Hamas Policy To Hold Kidnapped Shalit Hostage Adopted By PA

After Merger, Hamas Policy To Hold Kidnapped Shalit Hostage Adopted By PA

May 27, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Morton A. Klein
Phone: 212-481-1500
http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=2055

Following the recent unity government agreement between Mahmoud Abbas’
Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas, the Zionist Organization of America
(ZOA) has pointed to the declaration by PA senior official, Nabil Shaath
that the PA will continue to hold the Hamas-abducted Israeli serviceman,
Corporal Gilad Shalit, until it can ransom him in return for jailed
Palestinian terrorists. This is the first indication that Hamas polices are
being adopted by the new Fatah/PA/Hamas unity government. Though never
having outlawed terrorist groups or ended incitement to hatred and murder
against Israel, as required under the signed Oslo agreements, the PA did not
previously kidnap Israelis and hold them for ransom.

Shaath, a senior Fatah/PA official and former PA foreign minister, said the
PA will continue to hold Shalit, and negotiate his release in exchange for
jailed Palestinian terrorists, rather than freeing him immediately. In
comments given to Independent Media Review & Analysis, Shaath said that
Shalit would become, upon the unification of the Fatah/PA and Hamas, “the
responsibility of the unified authority and it should proceed to exchange
Shalit with as many Palestinian prisoners as possible … We have 7,000
political prisoners in Israel by design – taken by the Israeli authority.
They have to be also freed” (‘Nabil Shaath to IMRA – PA to hold Shalit after
unification 25.5.11.wmv,’ Youtube, May 25, 2011).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “Nabil Shaath’s statement to
IMRA illustrates clearly the direction the new Fatah/Hamas PA regime is
taking. Hamas is not only responsible until now for the illegal abduction
and incarceration of Shalit, but is a U.S. and E.U.-listed terrorist
organization which calls in its Charter, not only for the destruction of
Israel, but also for the murder of Jews.

“Corporal Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas in 2006 from Israeli territory by a
squad of Hamas kidnappers who entered Israel specifically for the purpose.
He is thus completely unlike Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, all of
whom have been tracked down, charged and convicted in duly appointed courts
of law for their criminal, murderous terrorist acts. Corporal Gilad Shalit
is guilty of no crime – he was simply unfortunate enough to be seized by
Hamas. This is the act of criminal gang.

“Now, however, it is no longer only the act of a single criminal gang. The
PA, which previously did not kidnap and hold hostage Israelis, has agreed to
be party to it. The Fatah/PA is increasingly tending in Hamas’ direction. In
Shaath’s declaration, we see Hamas’ evident influence and pull.

“When Nabil Shaath foreshadows that the PA, once having come into authority
over all Palestinians in Gaza, will not immediately free Shalit but, on the
contrary, will use him as bargaining chip, he tells the world that Fatah is
no different from Hamas as criminal, terrorist outfit. This tells us that
Fatah/Hamas/PA, which in any case has never accepted Israel as a Jewish
state, arrested terrorists or ended incitement to hatred and murder against
Israel, must be rigorously sanctioned and isolated. As a start, the U.S.
must cease all funding to the PA at once.”