Israel advocacy group says settler arson attack could be 'Arab hoax'

The Zionist Organisation of America (ZOA), one of the oldest Israel advocacy groups in the United States, has claimed that the fatal arson attack on a Palestinian home in the West Bank could have been an “Arab hoax.”

In a statement by the group’s president Morton Klein mailed to their supporters, the ZOA said it was “inappropriate to rush to cast blame on Jews for the fire” that killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh.

Both local Palestinians and the Israeli authorities have been clear that the attack was carried out by Jewish settlers.

Citing “numerous instances in which Arabs have fabricated attacks or blamed Jews for Arab violence against other Arabs”, the ZOA president claimed that “evidence” points to the attack being “the continuation of an 18-year-old feud between two Arab clans” in Douma.

The ZOA refers to a “history of fabricated attacks” that “goes back at least to the Nazi era”, and claims that “Arab Palestinians play dead” in videos, as “the press films them.”

At the time of writing, there has been no condemnation of the ZOA’s statement by other pro-Israel advocacy groups, in the U.S. or elsewhere.