Opinion

May 29, 2008

Palestinian terror stretches back to RFK killing at the Ambassador Hotel

By Paul Kujawsky

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Still, Palestinian terrorists recognized Sirhan as one of them. On March 1, 1973, with Sirhan serving a life sentence (the California Supreme Court having invalidated California's death penalty in 1972), PLO terrorists invaded the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, taking hostage U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel Jr., Deputy Chief of Mission George Curtis Moore and Belgian Chargé d'Affaires Guy Eid.

The terrorists demanded a prisoner exchange: They wanted the release of a Black September leader in Jordan, several Baader-Meinhof gang members in Germany and Sirhan. When President Richard Nixon refused to negotiate, PLO chief Yasser Arafat personally ordered the murder of the three diplomats.

Today, Sirhan is 64 years old. Kennedy would have been 83.

The Kennedy murder and the Palestinian connection matter today. It's important to realize how long Palestinians have used murder and terror as a primary tool of politics and how long they've found observers to excuse and justify it. Perhaps consideration of the Kennedy-Sirhan affair will lead to the clarity and strength to demand that it finally stop.

America and Israel face a common enemy in Palestinian extremism and have a common interest in supporting liberal, reformist Palestinians. America, Israel and the other liberal democracies must use their considerable political and economic leverage to help the Palestinians forge a decent society, in which terror and political murder are a receding nightmare.


Paul Kujawsky (kujawsky@pacbell.net) is a former president of Democrats for Israel, Los Angeles.

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