Pro-Israel Group Miffed by White House Meeting with Abbas
by Fred Jackson and Chad Groening
October 24, 2005
(AgapePress) - The Wall Street Journal has released the profiles of three Palestinians being held by Israelis who Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas apparently refuses to recognize as terrorists. During a meeting between Abbas and President Bush at the White House last week, Bush called on the Palestinian leader to end terror attacks and dismantle terrorist infrastructure. But as the WSJ article points out, Abbas refused to use the terms "terrorism" or "terrorists" -- but did demand the release of what he called "prisoners of freedom" being held in Israeli jails.
The Wall Street Journal says the so-called prisoners of freedom include a Hamas leader who organized a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv in 1997 which killed three and injured close to 50 others; a member of the terrorist group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who bullied a 14-year-old boy into becoming a suicide bomber; and a 21-year-old woman whose suicide bombing attempt was thwarted at an Israeli checkpoint. She has testified that her target was an Israeli hospital -- and that she wanted to kill 20 or 50 Jews.
Accounts such as this in The Wall Street Journal have led many supporters of Israel to denounce the White House's relentless push for a Palestinian state when leaders such as Yasser Arafat and Abbas draw no distinction between terrorism and "prisoners of freedom."
Abbas 'Devoted to Peace'?
Among those taking issue with last week's meeting between Bush and Abbas is the Unity Coalition for Israel. That group, which says it is committed to a safe and secure Israel, is calling on people of faith to contact President Bush to express their disapproval of that meeting.
Esther Levens, founder and CEO of the Coalition, says she is not happy that the president invited Abbas to the White House a second time, and called the Palestinian leaders a man "devoted to peace" when Israel is being told to make concessions to terror.
"The president hasn't demanded [that] terrorism stop -- and certainly there's [been] no voluntary stoppage," Levens observes. "It never even came up as an issue [during last week's meeting], but [the White is] only making demands on Israel, which is really not a very even-handed approach to this situation."
Levens says it is "horrendous" that the Palestinians are getting a "free ride" and there has been no mention that they must stop their acts of terror. "[T]errorism is generating the entire problem," she says. "We shouldn't even be entertaining a terrorist in the White House, and certainly not supporting [Abbas] as a man of peace."
The Coalition founder believes the president is being motivated by Saudi Arabian oil. "I think that the fact that this was a Saudi-inspired road map kind of tells the whole story," she offers. "Israel, in a sense, is being really sacrificed for the sake of oil."
Levens is urging Christians to contact the White House and to express their support for Israel -- and their disdain for Mahmoud Abbas.
Fred Jackson and Chad Groening are both regular contributors to AgapePress and report for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
