STATEMENT ON THE MURDER OF SHEIKH AHMED YASSIN
Issued by New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine
March 22, 2004

New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine condemns the latest in the long series of assassinations aimed at destroying the Palestinian leadership, the murder on Monday, March 22, 2004, of Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. This murderous attack, which killed nine other Palestinians along with Sheikh Yassin, is a continuation of the ongoing genocidal policy of the Zionist state against the Palestinian people and their leadership. It comes upon the heels of weeks of brutal assaults upon Palestinians, and the daily massacres of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Zionist Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the butcher of Sabra and Shatila, has proclaimed his personal responsibility for the assassination, adding yet another to his long list of war crimes. This murder - as with the murders of Palestinians that occur daily - took place with US-made weaponry and funded by US tax dollars. It was a US-made Apache helicopter that sent the missiles that struck the 67-year-old quadriplegic Sheikh Yassin in his wheelchair, and it has been the US government's institutional, financial, military and political support for Zionist colonialism in Palestine that has continually supported the murder of Palestinians. Today's assassination once again indicates the horrendous human cost of that aid. It must end - immediately.