US Jewish group blasts call in PA daily to disrupt Jerusalem Holocaust event

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations issues a statement condemning the Palestinian Authority over an opinion piece published this week in the PA’s official daily paper that called for attacks and murders of Israelis as a tool to disrupt or cancel the international Holocaust memorial to be held in Jerusalem with dozens of world leaders.

“We condemn the publication over the weekend in the Palestinian Authority’s daily newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, of an article inciting attacks against the gathering of world leaders in Jerusalem commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz this week,” say the US organization’s chairman Arthur Stark and CEO Malcolm Hoenlein in the statement. “Such a call for violence can never be justified, but it is especially repugnant for the PA to incite terrorism deliberately aimed at disrupting an occasion as solemn and significant as this.

“The day that the article was published, its barbaric call for bloodshed was heeded when an Israeli civilian was stabbed by a Palestinian terrorist near the Tomb of the Patriarchs. So long as the PA maintains this shockingly belligerent posture toward Israel, and displays such wanton disregard for the Jewish people and this most sacred and significant commemoration, the path to peace is obstructed.

“It is time for the PA to also end the Holocaust denigration and denial evidenced in its political, educational, and media sectors. We pray that no further senseless violence occurs as a result of this outrageous call.”