March 19, 2009

Exclusive report from Mondoweiss: In a speech at a New York synagogue Wednesday night, Nadia Matar, a leader of the Israeli settlers' group "Women in Green," called for the assassination of Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, as a way of bringing peace to Israel.

Just as Churchill understood that in order to bring peace to Europe, "he had to destroy the Nazi beast," Matar explained, "today we must destroy all the terrorist organizations. We must kill all the terrorist leaders, starting with Mahmoud Abbas and all others...Nobody had any moral qualms at destroying the Nazi regime. We have to abolish the Oslo Agreements, there's no difference between the PA, the Islamic Jihad, the Hamas, whatever names you have, they're all terrorists and we cannot have peace with them."

Matar then urged the crowd at the Safra Synagogue on the Upper East Side to make tax-deductible donations to Women in Green by writing checks to the Central Fund of Israel.

As this website has reported, the Central Fund is a U.S. charity group that supports Jewish settler militias. It has received donations from leading figures in the American Jewish community, including James Tisch, the ceo of Loews, Michael Milken the banker/philanthropist, Alan C. (Ace) Greenberg, the former ceo of Bear Stearns, and actor Kirk Douglas. The Fund is housed at a fabric store on Sixth Avenue called Marcus Fabrics and administered by Arthur and Hadassah Marcus, who live in New York, and their son Jay, who lives in Efrat, the West Bank settlement where Nadia Matar also lives.

Matar, who was born in Belgium and moved to Israel 20 years ago, thanked the Safra Synagogue rabbi, Elie Abadie, who is associated with Yeshiva University, for hosting her visit. It was her third appearance in a tour of the U.S. to build support for the Jewish colonists of the West Bank.