Zionist Organization of America President Morton A. Klein has called for President Bush not to receive Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, saying the Palestinian Authority's new president is simply Yasser "Arafat in a suit."

Klein faulted the new Palestinian president for not condemning the suicide bombing that claimed the lives of six Israeli civilians in Gaza last Thursday, for being a "Holocaust denier" and for his role in being a "co-founder of the terror group Fatah."

To receive Abbas at the White House "will stain the image of our country as much as Arafat's visits did," Klein declared in a news release issued Friday, Jan. 14. "Mr. Bush should follow his own declaration, 'we will not deal with Palestinian leaders compromised by terror.' And that means Abbas."

   —Donald H. Harrison