STATE DEPT. WEBSITE WHITEWASHES PALI TERRORISM

Site doesn't ID PA terror suspects (JPost)

A Web site run by the US State Department that is "designed to bring international terrorists to justice" fails to identify the perpetrators of suicide bombings and other attacks in Israel as Palestinians, The Jerusalem Post has found. The Rewards for Justice Web site (www.rewardsforjustice.net), is part of a program administered by the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service. It offers rewards "for information that prevents, frustrates or favorably resolves acts of international terrorism against US persons or property worldwide" and gives details of terrorist attacks in which US citizens were kidnapped, injured or killed.

While the site includes names, photographs and background information about terrorists wanted for attacks in places such as the Philippines, Yemen and Italy, it does not provide a single name, biographical detail or even organizational affiliation for Palestinian terrorists involved in the murder of Americans. Instead, the site obliquely refers to them as "individuals and groups opposed to Middle East peace negotiations" or as "terrorist individuals and groups opposed to a negotiated peace." Since the the Oslo accords were signed in September 1993, dozens of American citizens have been killed in Palestinian terrorist attacks. These include three Americans murdered in the October 2003 assault on a US diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip and five US citizens who died in the July 2002 Palestinian bombing at Hebrew University.

Asked to explain why the perpetrators are not identified as Palestinians, even though Palestinian organizations often claim responsibility for attacks, State Department spokeswoman Andrea Rogers-Harper said, "The United States government will pursue the perpetrators of terror attacks against Americans carried out by any group opposed to the peace process regardless of their ethnicity."