Department of Hate Does The Backstroke

Hate Department spokesman PJ Crowley is doing the backstroke stating that the PLO being allowed to fly its flag in front of its offices in Washington D.C. does not reflect a change in the bureau's diplomatic status.

“There has been no change in the status of the Palestinian mission here in Washington…. It does not have any diplomatic privileges or immunities.”

Apparently the PLO's relationship has gotten sweet and rosy...and you thought the United States wasn't negotiating and pussy-footing with terrorists. The PLO requested that it be allowed to:

“to call itself the General Delegation of the PLO, which is a name that conforms to how they describe their missions in Europe, Canada, and several Latin American countries. But these steps have symbolic value…but they have no meaning under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.”

The request was granted with Crowley noting an

“improvement in the relations between the United States and Palestinians”

And what exactly would that improvement look like? Has the PLO ceased its incitement against Jews? Nope. Then again, the United States has never really made that demand with anything resembling veracity. Has the PLO's controlling parties declared their recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, accepted its right to exist, or call for an end to armed conflict with the Jews? Nope. Has the PLO acted to end terrorism and acts of violence against Jews? Nope. So where exactly can it be seen that there is any reason for relations to have improved?

Well, if the man calling himself the president of the United States hates Israel, sees no value in it, considers its creation a mistake that needs to be corrected...read he wants to see it destroyed... then certainly there is plenty of reason for relations with the PLO to have improved.

Thing of it is that in 2004, the United States Congress declared the PLO to be a terrorist organization, finding that:

(1) Middle East terrorism accounted for 60 percent of total international terrorism in 1985;

(2) the Palestine Liberation Organization (hereafter in this chapter referred to as the “PLO”) was directly responsible for the murder of an American citizen on the Achille Lauro cruise liner in 1985, and a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee is under indictment in the United States for the murder of that American citizen;

(3) the head of the PLO has been implicated in the murder of a United States Ambassador overseas;

(4) the PLO and its constituent groups have taken credit for, and been implicated in, the murders of dozens of American citizens abroad;

(5) the PLO covenant specifically states that “armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine, thus it is an overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase”;

(6) the PLO rededicated itself to the “continuing struggle in all its armed forms” at the Palestine National Council meeting in April 1987; and

(7) the Attorney General has stated that “various elements of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its allies and affiliates are in the thick of international terror”.

Based on these findings Congress determined that:

...the PLO and its affiliates are a terrorist organization and a threat to the interests of the United States, its allies, and to international law and should not benefit from operating in the United States.

Ooops. So Mr. Crowley, not only is it inappropriate that the PLO, an organization declared by Congress to be a terrorist organization, be allowed to fly its flag in the United States, it should not even have offices here from which it derives any benefit.

Some how I don't think Crowley's backstroke is that good. Of course, when it comes to Congress, the State Department employs a completely different kind of stroking.