THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release January 24, 1995 FACT SHEET: EXECUTIVE ORDER ON TRANSACTIONS WITH TERRORISTS WHO THREATEN TO DISRUPT THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS - The Executive Order issued under Presidential authority contained in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, blocks property within the jurisdiction of the United States of designated foreign persons or organizations that threaten to disrupt the Middle East peace process. -- The Order also prohibits and transfers by U.S. persons to the designated persons or organizations, including charitable contributions of funds, goods, or services. - Twelve foreign organizations are named in the Executive Order. In addition, the Treasury Department has designated 18 foreign persons and has provided a number of pseudonyms used by the organizations and individuals designated. All of these specially designated terrorists are subject to the freeze and transfer prohibitions. Included in the list are 35 variants of the names of these organizations and foreign persons. Additional organizations or variant names may be added in the future. - This action is undertaken in response to recurrent acts of international terrorism which threaten the Middle East peace process, such as the bomb attack in Beit Lid over the weekend, recent bus bombings in Israel, as well as earlier threats against and attacks on Palestinian and Egyptian authorities, and bombings in Buenos Aires and London. - As an element in our Counterterrorism efforts, these new measures will add to the arsenal of weapons available to U.S. law enforcement agencies to combat potential funding of these organizations from U.S. sources. - These measures are intended to deny terrorist groups that threaten the peace process access to the U.S. financial system by freezing any of their funds within U.S. jurisdiction. - These measures are also intended to preclude diversion of charitable contributions to fund terrorism activities by prohibiting the transfer of funds by U.S. persons to these groups. - Although we recognize that these groups receive most of their financial support from sources outside the United States, we hope these measures will discourage all donors from contribution to groups that use violence to oppose the peace process. We hope our actions will serve to encourage similar action by other nations. - The President will soon send to Congress comprehensive anti-terrorism legislation which would strengthen our ability to prevent terrorist acts, identify those who perpetrate such violent acts, and bring them to justice. # # #