Ha'aretz News

Friday, April 27, 2001

U.S. to charge PLO factions with terrorism

By Nitzan Horowitz

Ha'aretz Correspondent

WASHINGTON - For the first time in many years, the U.S. State Department will cite key factions of the PLO in its annual report on international terrorism. The report, to be published next week, echoes Israeli charges that Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction and the Tanzim organization have been actively involved in terrorism against Israel during the current Intifada.

The report prepares the ground for declaring these groups to be "foreign terrorist organizations" - a designation which, under American law, would force the U.S. government to sever all ties with them.

For the moment the State Department is refraining from applying this designation. The report also refrains from charging Arafat and other senior Palestinian Authority officials with responsibility for ordering attacks against Israelis. Neverthless, it reflects the Bush administration's tougher stand against the PA. This attitude has found support in Congress where, because of the Intifada, hundreds of legislators recently asked Bush to declare either the PLO or some of its factions "terrorist organizations." In a letter to the president, the congressmen also asked him to consider closing the PLO's office in Washington and ending American aid to the Palestinians.

Earlier this month, the State Department gave Congress its semi-annual report on the PA's compliance with various agreements. The report said members of the PA security services affiliated with Fatah had "initiated or participated in" anti-Israel violence, without ever being punished for this behavior. However, the report said, it is not clear that they were acting with the approval of the PA or senior PLO officials.

Even before the Intifada broke out in September, the report added, certain Fatah organizations were behaving problematically. Groups such as the Tanzim, for instance, ran "summer camps" that provided weapons training for over 30,000 Palestinian youths.

-- Anonymous, April 27, 2001