Arafat Invited to Congressional Prayer Breakfast
Yasser Arafat has been invited to participate in the annual Congressional Prayer Breakfast on Thursday 4 February in Washington. He has accepted. Whatever the intent, we can think of no satisfactory explanation for inviting a man with American blood on his hands to sit as a guest of Members of Congress in this venue.
Arafat’s entire career has been inimical to the interests of the American government. He rose to notoriety by instigating acts of terrorism inside and outside of Israel, killing American citizens including Gail Rubin, Leon Klinghoffer and US Ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel.
Yasser Arafat has been invited to participate in the annual Congressional Prayer Breakfast on Thursday 4 February in Washington. He has accepted. Whatever the intent, we can think of no satisfactory explanation for inviting a man with American blood on his hands to sit as a guest of Members of Congress in this venue.
Arafat’s entire career has been inimical to the interests of the American government. He rose to notoriety by instigating acts of terrorism inside and outside of Israel, killing American citizens including Gail Rubin, Leon Klinghoffer and US Ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel. He led the revolt against King Hussein in 1970, resulting in the expulsion of the PLO to southern Lebanon, subverting Lebanon and fomenting the Lebanese civil war of 1976.
Arafat operated training camps for terrorist groups including the Italian Red Brigades, the Japanese Red Army and the German Baader Meinhof Gang; and trained terrorists in El Salvador, Nicaragua and elsewhere in Central and South America. In this, he made common cause with the USSR, and the East German Stasi. He has been the chief Arab supporter of Saddam during and since the occupation of Kuwait.
Today: Yasser Arafat provides safe haven for the murderers of Americans – David Boim, Sarah Duker, Matthew Eisenfeld, Joan Davenny, Nachshon Waxman and others. Arafat’s Palestinian Authority (PA) has spent millions of American taxpayer dollars – allocated by Congress for the advancement of economic infrastructure and education in the PA controlled areas – without proper procedures or transparency. Our money given to the Palestinian Broadcasting Authority has been spent to produce children’s programs extolling violence, martyrdom and the destruction of Israel. Arafat controls an authority that is fundamentally undemocratic and anti-Western. He condones vicious anti-American rhetoric and threatens the region with violence if his demands are not met.
The Congressional Prayer Breakfast has been a place where friends of American ideals have been welcome. The invitation to Mr. Arafat is an ugly departure.
We believe the organizers should reconsider the invitation to Arafat. But absent that, we hope and we fully expect that Congressman Steve Largent, Chairman of the event, will use the occasion to tell Mr. Arafat that Congress expects him to promote peace, security, freedom, democracy and fiscal accountability in the PA. And that Congress stands firmly behind its friend and ally, Israel.