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PLO HIRES KIDNAPPER AS POLICEMAN; ZOA ASKS U.S. TO INTERVENE

NEW YORK - An Arab terrorist who kidnapped two Israelis earlier this month has been hired as a PLO police investigator, and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is urging the Clinton administration to intervene.

The terrorist was one of two members of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO, who kidnapped two Israeli border policemen in Kabatiya on December 1, in order to aid the escape of a third terrorist.

Brigadier-General Yaacov Amidror, deputy head of Israeli Army Intelligence, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on December 6, 1995 that contrary to the PLO's claim that it jailed the kidnappers, one of them "has been freed and is acting as an investigator for the Palestinian police."

Amidror said that other Arab terrorists who were detained by the PLO police in Gaza "have been freed and continue to be involved in terror activities." He also noted that the PLO has refused to honor any of Israel's requests for the extradition of 17 terrorists.

Following Amidror's testimony, Labor MK Emanuel Zissman told reporters that "Arafat is still inciting violence after the murder of the prime minister and even though the redeployment is continuing. In speeches in the last two weeks which were broadcast on Palestinian Television in Gaza and Ramallah, he still praises terror and those who carry it out." (Jerusalem Post, Dec. 6, 1995). "The Clinton administration must use its $500-million in aid to the PLO as leverage to force the PLO to comply with the accords and take serious steps against terrorists," said Morton A. Klein, ZOA National President. "Pressure must be put on the PLO now, before it receives additional territory, because once it receives that territory it will have even less incentive to comply with the accords," Klein said.

The ZOA president said that the PLO's promotion of the kidnapper to policeman, coming just days after the State Department's latest report on PLO compliance with the accords, "clearly contradicts the State Department's claim that the PLO is fighting terrorism."