NYC -- Terror free! City Hall Steps Rally
calls for bill to remove PLO UN Mission
from New York
As six more Israelis were murdered Tuesday by Palestinian terrorists,
150 New York area residents gathered on the steps of New York Citys historic
City Hall, then marched a block away to the City Councils hearing room. They
came in emotional and forceful ssupport of a City Council resolution
requesting the federal government to declare the Palestine Liberation
Organization a terrorist organization, so the PLO Mission to the UN, which
fills an entire townhouse on Manhattans East Side, could be shut down. The
resolution was introduced at the initiative of the Coalition for Jewish
Concerns-Amcha by Councilman Oliver Koppell of the Bronx.
When
loud chants of "NYC terror free!" finally quieted, CJC-Amcha national president Rabbi Avi Weiss pointed first toward the missing twin
towers, then to City Hall. "The planes hit there," he declared, "but now it
becomes the responsibility of City Hall and the City Council to insure that
it doesnt happen again, that New York City be terror free. Our citys finest
are making sure terrorists today cannot cross our bridges into the city. Yet
there are police-protected offices of the terrorists of the Palestine
Liberation Organization right off Park Avenue.
"I just returned from Israel, where I visited some of the victims of
terror. They were targeted only because they were Jews, just as American
blacks were lynched in the South only because of who they were. We ask the City Council: in the name of humanity, find the courage to speak truth to
power! Raise a voice of moral conscience!
"Mr. Mayor: You are a man of intelligence and dignity.
Just before the election, you sat at my side at a Sabbath dinner. I ask for your leadership. Stand up be strong!
"We will raise our voice for victims of the PLO students Alisa Flatow, Sara Duker, and Matt Eisenfeld, for Leon Klinghoffer, thrown overboard from a ship, for the American diplomats murdered in Khartoum.Terrorism is a cancer if you dont cut it out, it spreads. One day its in Israel, but it jumps oceans in an instant, as we saw at the twin towers. Unless the cancer of the PLO Mission is removed, New Yorkers are not safe.
If we are shot in Sbarros in Jerusalem, it can happen here.
"We say to the City Council: as you stood up to apartheid and made
sure that the City of New York had nothing official to do with South Africa, we ask you to do the same with Arafat, the PLO and PA.
Councilman Michael Nelson told the crowd: "It seems illogical that while the US rightfully goes after terrorists all over the world, we have a PLO office right here off Park Avenue." Leroy Comrie, a black Councilman added:"We had to make sure we send a clear message against terror around the world, not just in Afghanistan. Terror cannot be tolerated in any manner, shape or form."
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale stated: "After September 11th, President Bush closed down the Texas-based office of a Hamas front, the Holy Land Foundation.
The PLO and PA work with Hamas, and we cannot allow the PLO UN Mission to remain. We also ask City Council Speaker Gifford Miller to stand up to terror."
Hillary Markowitz, a pediatric nurse, mother of four and founder of
Mothers Against Terrorism, told the crowd, composed of many students from the Kushner Academy High School, "There are too many mothers crying every night when they get the call that Palestinians have attacked their children in an Israeli pizzeria or mall. Innocent children and needless bloodshed. Its an absolute outrage for children walking the streets of New York that a terrorist organization has a home right here." The crowd chanted, "Mr. Mayor, kick them out!"
Rabbi David Kalb of Beit Chaverim Synagogue declared:"We can never
affirm terrorism in any form, whether a UN mission off Park Avenue or a terror leader receiving a Nobel peace prize."
Kushner Academy student Yoni Zarby stated, "We do not differentiate between terrorism, whether its from Al Qeda or the PLO. Bid Ladin is a terrorist, and so is Yasir Arafat."
The City Council hearings were chaired by Councilman Jose Serrano of the Cultural Affairs Committee. After supportive words by Council members Rubin Diaz, James E. Davis and David Weprin, Rabbi Weiss was permitted lengthy testimony. He reiterated the points he had made at the City Hall steps rally, adding that "there is no moral equivalency between cold-blooded
murder and self-defense."
The City Council resolution has over a dozen co-sponsors.
=========================
Same day Mayor Bloomberg responds
PLO Welcome at UN: Bloomberg responds
By MICHAEL SAUL
Daily News City Hall Bureau
Mayor Bloomberg defended the Palestine Liberation Organization's right to
maintain a UN mission in the city, saying no United Nations member nation
should be kicked out no matter how "disgraceful and disgusting" the
circumstances might be.
"As the host city for the UN, we have to ‹ even when it is painful and
disgraceful and disgusting, any term you want to use ‹ we have to be willing
to let anybody that the UN wants to credit ... come here," Bloomberg said
yesterday.
The mayor reiterated his firm commitment to keeping UN headquarters in New
York, noting the UN is an enormous economic contributor to the city.
"This country does not have to let them go outside of New York," he added. "I
don't have to go give them the keys to the city, or a proclamation or shake
their hands or anything else ... but the bottom line is either you are going
to be the host city or you're not."
Bloomberg's stance placed him squarely at odds with Jewish leaders who
rallied yesterday for the group's ouster.
Rabbi Avi Weiss, national president of the Coalition for Jewish Concerns, led
a rally on the steps of City Hall to support Bronx City Councilman Oliver
Koppell's resolution to shutter the PLO mission.
"If Osama Bin Laden can't have an Al Qaeda diplomatic mission in New York,
why should [PLO leader Yasser] Arafat, who has a longer and bloodier record?"
Weiss said.
Asked about the rally, a spokeswoman for the PLO mission said: "It doesn't
even deserve a response from our perspective. We are not a terrorist
organization."
During the campaign, Bloomberg said he disagreed with former Mayor Rudy
Giuliani's 1995 decision to eject Arafat from a concert for world leaders at
Lincoln Center. "He was wrong in doing it, obviously," Bloomberg said in July.
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