Washington, DC — The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) today condemned Israel’s attack on a Palestinian residential area which killed at least 14 people, including 9 children. The attack, in which an American-made and supplied F-16 warplane fired missiles into civilian apartment buildings, was apparently intended as an assassination attempt against Salah Shehada, a leading figure in Hamas. Shehada was reported killed in the attack, as were 9 children, two of them babies, and 5 apartment buildings were destroyed. Over 100 Palestinians were wounded in the attack. ADC notes that this attack would meet any reasonable definition of the term “terrorism.”
ADC called on the Bush Administration to recognize that this use of American-made and supplied weapons to attack civilians by the bombing their neighborhoods with F-16 Jets is, among other things, a clear violation of the Arms Export Control Act.
ADC President Ziad Asali said “this despicable action, which predictably and inevitably took the lives of many innocents, most of them children, would be immediately identified as an act of terrorism in any other circumstance. Our government must unequivocally condemn this murderous attack on Palestinian civilians, just as it has rightly condemned suicide bomb attacks that have taken the lives of Israeli civilians and children. Prime Minister Sharon’s description of this horror as a ‘great success’ is an indication of the moral bankruptcy of Israel’s policies.”
Dr. Asali concluded, “It is deeply disturbing that American taxpayers’ money was used to make and supply the F-16 which carried out this atrocity. We call upon President Bush to take immediate measures to ensure that American weapons are no longer illegally used by Israel to murder Palestinian civilians.”