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-- Palestinian Mother Turns Suicide Bomber for Hamas
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Re: Palestinian perspective
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| Originally posted by Palestinian Palestinians do not cause much of their own suffering. That sounds ridiculous. Blaming people for their own suffering. Have you lived under Israel's military occupation? You can't imagine the suffering it causes. |
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| When I said the attacks started 28 years later, I meant 28 years after the military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank started in 1967. The Israelis did not 'cultivate' 67 lands, they occupied it militarily and demolished several villages. |
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| It took 28 years of suffering to culminate into anger and then war of independence i.e Intifada. Not 28 years to build an "infrastructure of hate". But yes, hate exists. Why does it exist? Because of the effects of military occupation: it creates hate. |
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| Regarding the right of return. I do believe in international law and UN resolution 194. I also believe in morality. Iraqis who fled the recent war are allowed to return to Iraq. Morality tells me everyone has a right to return to their lands after war. |
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| The Israeli right-wing government has many politicians who favor "voluntary transfer" of Palestinians. I do fail to see how Israel could be eliminated completely. Palestinians have a much more genuine fear of being eliminated than the fourth most powerful state in the world. |
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| Check this Btselem's website for statistics. I trust Btselem and hope you will too. http://www.btselem.org/ |
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| I find it increasingly difficult to believe that you tend to support neither side. I don't think I needed to do much to 'force' you into the Israeli side of things. If those were your views before we debated, then I you were an Israeli supporter from before. |
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| I never said I was trying to be objective. I'm a Palestinian. I support my people in their struggle. I'm not here to be objective but to defend the Palestinian perspective. It's late, I'm tired, good nite. |
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| Originally posted by VanFleet Palestinian and Btselem. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/379769.html Not the slightest regret By Yoel Marcus Ha'aretz, January 6, 2003 Eitan Ronel, a retired lieutenant colonel, returned his rank insignia to the chief of staff this week, along with a letter full of bitterness. "Human life has lost its worth and values we were raised on, such as purity of arms, have become a bad joke," he wrote (Haaretz, January 4). Ronel's protest over the IDF's conduct in the territories is not the first and won't be the last. The reserve pilots, the Sayeret Matkal commandos and the 12th graders got there before him. Before them, there were the four Shin Bet chiefs and the former head of the Mossad. On top of that, we've got B'Tselem and Gush Shalom, plus the Beilins and the Sarids and the Burgs, who are big on peace with the Palestinians and feel their pain. We have committees of inquiry investigating how and why Palestinian women and children were killed in this or that operation. We have a High Court to which every Palestinian can appeal. We have a media that will not allow the least injustice or wrong to slip by. We have columnists whose hearts ache along with the Palestinians. What I would like to know is why there is no one on the other side crying out against the Palestinian Authority's policy of hatred and bloodshed. Where is their B'Tselem? Where are the Palestinian refuseniks who object to the murder of women and children? How come, when civilians are accidentally killed in one of our military operations, everyone clamors right away for an investigation, while their suicide bombers have no qualms about boarding a bus packed with children or entering a crowded restaurant and blowing themselves up, fully aware of who they are taking with them? Not only are they not denounced, but their families are treated with respect and showered with perks and pensions. While we quarrel bitterly over ways to solve the conflict, the Palestinian government has only one way, and it begins and ends with violence. The Palestinians imbibe hatred of Israel with their mothers' milk. From childhood, they are taught that the Jews must die. In their textbooks, it doesn't say, of course, that the ones who stole their rights were the Arab countries, who invaded the land earmarked for them in the UN partition plan when they attacked in 1948. It doesn't say that they were liberated from Arab occupation only in 1967 - by Israel. Actually, it's been easier for them to push for an independent state under Israeli control than it would ever have been under Jordanian-Egyptian rule. Whenever a truly historical moment arises - the Oslo Accords, the Clinton-Barak initiative - that's when they go on a spree of suicide bombings in the heart of Israeli population centers. The Palestinians have crossed all the red lines. They have turned Israeli peaceniks into radicals, rousing them into angry rebellion against what is happening around them. But while we respond, while we torture ourselves, while we keep asking ourselves every second if we haven't gone overboard and maybe it's time to stop, the Palestinians have never shown the slightest regret over any attack, no matter how massive, no matter how cruel. Instead of the Palestinian Authority keeping Hamas in check, it is Hamas that sets the tone. Even in times of grief and pain, the two peoples are poles apart. When we bury our dead, we weep quietly at the graveside. For them, every funeral becomes a raucous demonstration of hatred and incitement against Israel. Israeli society is plunged in gritty debate. The government is being criticized for not doing enough to end the conflict. Before the intifadas, there were signs that coexistence was possible. Tens of thousands of Israelis flocked to the territories - to have their teeth fixed, to have their cars repaired, to do their food shopping. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians worked in Israel proper. Today, the only contact is via the barrel of a gun, the army checkpoint, the helicopter gunship, the Qassam rocket and the explosive belt. The IDF reprisal attacks in the territories may be brutal, but there are also people who feel sorry for the Palestinians' bitter lot. Here one finds anger mixed with compassion; there, one finds anger mixed with loathing. Below the surface in Israel, hopes for peace continue to rumble. For them, hatred is total and blinding. Here they are with President Bush's road map staring them in the face, giving them a state of their own. And yet they won't do the one thing that will open the gate for them: dismantle terrorist infrastructure. Abu Mazen was ousted and Abu Ala will follow the orders of Arafat, who knows no other way but terror. It is not a fence that will change things but tearing down the wall of hatred that the Palestinians have built between the two peoples. |
http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110001901
Outbidding Saddam
I'll buy Palestinian children for $30,000 each.
BY SCOTT MILLER
Thursday, June 27, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT
(I read your editorial about how the home video of Palestinian mother Naima al-Obeid and her 19-year-old son, Mahmoud, was made public, celebrating his decision to carry out a homicide mission, in which he was successful in being killed, while killing two Israelis. I submit the following letter, hoping to reach Naima al-Obeid.)
To Naima al-Obeid:
I want to buy your children. As I understand it, you have seven children still alive (your son Mahmoud killed himself, I'm sorry to hear). I'll offer more than Saddam Hussein has offered; he'll pay $25,000 each, if they are willing to turn themselves into human bombs, but I'll pay $30,000 each.
I want to buy them away from the god of death you worship. Perhaps I can help them convert to traditional Islam, a religion that abhors murder and suicide. Maybe they'll wish to become Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or atheist. That will be their choice, if I can raise them as Americans.
If you sell your children to Hussein, instead of me, they are guaranteed to die young, to die blown to bits, to die while perhaps killing innocent women and children. I can't guarantee them immortality (neither can that god of death you worship, I can assure you), but I can guarantee to try to keep them safe and allow them to live long, healthy and productive lives. That's our dream in America.
I will pay top dollar for your children. I will top the offer of Hussein, of the Saudis, of Hamas, or the Palestinian Authority put together.
For a long time my wife and I have wondered what we might do to help in the war on terror. In buying your children, I see an opportunity for us to save countless innocent lives, among them your seven children.
Contact me. I'll pay.
Mr. Miller lives in Atlanta.
Palestinian intentions. Real reason why they rejected peace at Camp David.
On Arafat's Fateh site, it says this about Arafat's constitution. http://www.fateh.net/e_public/constitution.htm
Article (19) Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic, and the Palestinian Arab People's armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.
www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm
The principles of the Hamas are stated in their Covenant. On Hamas charter, it says.Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.
http://www.iris.org.il/quotes/stockhlm.htm
Arafat�s speech in front of 40 Arab diplomats in the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, on January 30, 1996.
You understand that we plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State. I have no use for Jews; they are and remain Jews. We now need all the help we can get from you in our battle for a united Palestine under total Arab-Muslim domination!"
http://beta.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1039225/posts
Dec 12, 03
Islamic Jihad leader Shaik Nafez Azzam on making peace
"You the Jews are invited to live in safety in Palestine, the whole" "But until then the terror attacks will continue. The Jihad will agree to 1967 border, and will continue to resistance from there to liberate all 1948 lands."
http://tinyurl.com/y4xm
FATEH Statement on Geneva Accord, 1 December 2003
We remind those who play with the future of our people that an independent Palestinian State on the 1967 occupied land is not part of the strategic consensus, but only a transition program adopted by the PLO at the 1974 meeting of the Palestinian National Council (PNC).
1974 Phased Plan http://tinyurl.com/y4xy
Hamas on making peace. Dec. 8, 2003
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satell...d=1070512329377
We are not ready to give them (the Palestinian Authority) authorization to sign a new agreement," said senior Hamas official Mohammed Nazzal. Nazzal also made
clear his group's stance towards the Jewish state. ""Every centimeter of the land of Palestine from 1948 onwards is occupied land and we will continue our resistance against Israeli targets in every place.
http://www.bridgesforpeace.com/publ...Article-27.html
The Late Faisal Husseini: Oslo Is A Trojan Horse
In Husseini's last interview with the the popular Egyptian newspaper el Arav in 2001.
Husseini said, it is the obligation of all the Palestinian forces and factions to see the Oslo Accords as "temporary" steps or "gradual" goals, because in this way, "We are setting an ambush for the Israelis and cheating them."
He also differentiated between, "strategic," long term, "higher" goals, and "political," short term goals dependent on "the current international establishment, balance of power, capabilities, and variable considerations that change from time to time." Nevertheless, the Palestinians have been forced to temporarily concentrate on "gradual diplomatic goals." However, the main goal is the "liberation of all Palestine from the river (Jordan) to the sea (Mediterranean)," even if this requires a struggle that will continue "1,000 years, or generations upon generations."
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/3/142002f.asp
The top Al Asqa terrorist has told USA Today all terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians come from Yasser Arafat.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0lo90
Senior Fatah Leaders Describe Arafat's Link to Terrorism
Arafat blackmailing woman to be suicide bombers. www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0n2a0
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satell...d=1027506446043
In one of many interviews from his comfortable home in Gaza City, Hamas "spiritual" leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was asked by the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera why Hamas targets civilians, such as university students, he explained, "They are considered by us to be enemy soldiers." Asked whether bombing at Hebrew University was in response to Israel's killing of its top terrorist mastermind, Salah Shehadeh, Yassin responded, "We don't operate that way. These are not acts of retribution. We do not struggle out of revenge, but rather to liberate our land." Finally, when asked whether Hamas would be satisfied with an Israeli withdrawal to its pre-June 1967 borders, Yassin stated, "Israel was born in violence and it will die in violence. The Jews have no right to the land of Palestine."
http://debka.com/article_print.php?aid=499
This article below shows that Arafat has always run the terrorist operation but has opened three or four fronts for the terrorists to use that are under Arafat's control.
It also allows Arafat to effectively use doublespeak in regards to terrorist attacks. Hamas claims responsibility and Arafat says he didn't do it. But he rented the people to Hamas who did do it. It's Arafat's oldest game."
Check out this article. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...23/MN285456.DTL
Arafat uses Libyan money from Khadafy to finance Al Aqsa Brigades. You notice the money doesn't go to the average Palestinian. It goes to finance terrorism.
Read this article in the Washington Times. www.washtimes.com/world/20020314-19136531.htm
Its by Paul Martin. Martin documents how Fatah and Hamas are in competition who can kill the most Israeli civilians.
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=14650
Monday, November 25, 2002
The Hamas advocates Killing Jews, simply for being Jews
24 November 2002
The Iz-Adin Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas, published
(23 November 2002) a bulletin on their official website, advocating the murder of Jews simply for the fact of that they are Jews.
The bulletin was published to commemerate the anniversary of the death of Imad Akal, a senior Hamas official, killed in the Gaza Strip on November 24, 1993. The bulletin quotes Akal as saying: "We will knock on the doors of Heaven with the skulls of the Jews". The bulletin depicts an axe shattering the word "Al-Yahud" (Jews) and splintering the skulls of Jews. The words Al-Qassam are engraved on the axe.
www.jewishnewhaven.org/whats_happen..._topics_id=1319
A poll by Global Attitudes Project, provided interesting findings. 80% of Palestinians, as well as large majorities in other Arab countries polled agree with this statement: THE RIGHTS AND NEEDS OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE CANNOT BE TAKEN CARE OF AS LONG AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL EXISTS". SO THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE ARAB WORLD BELIEVES THAT THE ONLY REAL SOLUTION IS FOR ISRAEL TO CEASE TO EXIST.
www.tzemach.org/fyi/docs/speak/words.htm
On the same day in 1993 on which Yasser Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn, he spoke the following words on Jordan TV:
"Since we cannot defeat Israel in war we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...20601holy.story
Sheikh Muhammed Siyam, a Hamas military leader said this. "I've been told to restrict or restrain what I say. I hope no one is recording me or taking any pictures, as none are allowed, because I'm going to speak the truth to you," Siyam reportedly said at the conference. "It's simple. Finish off the Israelis. Kill them all! Exterminate them! No peace ever! Do not bother to talk politics."
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby011003.asp
After the Tel Aviv massacre on January 12th, where 2 Palestinian homicide bombers massacred 23 Israeli civilians. The PLO web site posted a statement -- celebrating the attacks:
"With faith in the calling of holy jihad," it said, "two suicide attackers . . . succeeded this evening to infiltrate the Zionist roadblocks and to enter the heart of . . . Tel Aviv and carried out two consecutive suicide attacks... These suicide attacks caused a large number of fatalities and casualties in the center of the Zionist occupation of our land. We swear before our people that additional suicide operations will occur."
That is a view with which much of Arab opinion concurs. ArabicNews.com, for example, datelined its story on the Tel Aviv attack "Palestine-Israel," and reported that the bombings had killed "23 Israeli settlers."
http://www.jnewswire.com/editorial/...ndemnations.htm
Following the murderous terrorist attack on Kibbutz Metzer, the PLO cold-bloodedly stated on its official website, "We will continue to strike in any place, targeting their children as well." Five innocent Israelis, including a mother and her two little boys, were butchered in that attack, all of them, Fatah said, "Zionist colonizers" killed in a "qualitative operation in the settlement of Metzer."
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.c...nian&ID=SP23701
After the disco massacre last year, which murdered 21 Israeli school girls, a German TV station interviewed the father of the homicide bomber, who showed a letter he received from Arafat, where Arafat praised and glorified his son's actions.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satell...d=1048922665042 Mar. 30, 2003
Last week, Israeli security forces announced the capture of a Fatah-affiliated teenager sent on a suicide mission meant to kill hundreds of people.
Officials said the target was a home for 180 orphans and homeless children in Jerusalem. They said the 17-year-old Palestinian from the Bethlehem area was sent with a suitcase filled with explosives to blow up the school.
http://www.jewsweek.com/myturn/323.htm
Shoshana Gottleib, a young, religious mother of four, who told her story, she was in was attacked by murderous Palestinian machine-gun fire by terrorists, and how bending down to put orange peels in a plastic bag, she avoided the bullet that went through her headrest. As it was, Shoshana was critically injured, her spinal cord severed, paralyzing her for life from the chest down. One of the most interesting parts of Shoshana's presentation was her revelation that the terrorists who opened fire on her were three policemen in Arafat's Palestinian Authority, a fourth, who was Arafat's personal bodyguard in Force 17, and a fifth who had been recruited with the promise of $500. One of the terrorists videotaped the attack on the van, and it was sent to Yasir Arafat.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COMMENTARY.HTM
Following a recent suicide bombing, prominent Palestinian columnist Fahd al-Rimawi - writing with obvious approval of both Yasir Arafat and his new Prime Minister in Amman al-Majd, celebrated the genocidal act of terror: "Let us rejoice and applaud the operation with the sweetest of songs and ululations (sic). We greet that act of ingeniousness with the sweetest of chants and we bid farewel to our bold martyrs who have lit the night of Jerusalem...and given luster and meaning to Arab valor....We will not apologize for the Jewish blood that will be spilt nor denounce the heroic actions of the mujahidin who represent the soul of this nation and echo the pulse of the masses and the Palestinian people's conscience...."
http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en...ws&enVersion=0&
Nina Kardashov was joyfully celebrating her bat-mitzvah, the rite of passage to Jewish womanhood, with her friends and family. The band was playing, couples were dancing. The proud twelve-year-old, resplendent in her party dress, had just appeared on the stage. Then, as the amateur videos so horrifically showed, the Palestinian gunman starting shooting and people started dying, including Nina's grandfather and five other celebrants. An hour later, another celebration took place. In the Palestinian city of Tulkarm, hometown of the gunman, cars honked their horns, men shot in the air, strangers embraced in the streets and handed out candy.
http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en...ws&enVersion=0&
Last weekend, after a suicide bomber killed eleven young Israelis at a Jerusalem cafe, and a terrorist with an automatic rifle killed a nine-month-old baby in her stroller in Netanya, thousands celebrated in the West Bank and Gaza. The following night, there was an interview with the father of the Netanya killer. He was proud of his son, saying he had five more sons whom he prayed to Allah would follow in the baby-killer's footsteps. How can you deter a killer who considers murder-suicide the greatest honor in life? Israelis cannot afford to continue enduring the terrible calculus of suicide attacks.
http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en...ws&enVersion=0&
When Palestinians dance in the streets after hearing that Israeli civilians have been torn to pieces and charred beyond recognition, that society is expressing a kind of collective death wish. But the bombers and shooters, along with those who funds and direct them, don't just kill Israelis. They also write the death warrants for other Palestinians. They endanger and damage their own families and friends and neighbors. Actions produce consequences, and crimes invite punishment. The Palestinian Authority armed and financed the killers. Arafat called for a million of them. Parents pocketed a payoff from Saddam.
http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en...ws&enVersion=0&
After the massacre of men, women, and children in a Jerusalem pizzeria by a Palestinian suicide bomber, there were probably some who believed that Israel would respond with a similar act of violent bloodletting. They were to be disappointed. The F-16 missile attack on the golden-domed PA police station in Ramallah at 1:30am, long after it had been evacuated, was just a red herring, a distraction from the maneuver that Israeli forces were executing at that moment
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/371497.html
Dec 13, 03
"I tell those that signed the Geneva Accord that Palestine (Israel and the occupied territories) will never be Jewish," Rantissi told a crowd including dozens of gunmen.
Continuous and indiscriminate
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| Originally posted by DigiNut Sorry, I did not mean to imply that the citizens themselves were responsible for the suffering - I'm talking about their "system". The textbooks full of bias, glaring omissions, and outright lies. The government embezzling money from its people, paying off families of suicide bombers (speaking of which, how is this "collective reward" any better than Israel's "collective punishment?) and calling them "martyrs", and refusing any agreements that Israel comes up with. I don't blame Israel and the IDF, because despite the fact the territories have been occupied for a long time, the IDF rarely committed any acts of indiscriminate violence before the Palestinians started blowing things up. And to your inevitable response that I'm being a racist, I will repeat the same words to you that you said to me: try to understand the difference between understanding and justification, I don't justify the IDF but their REactions are not hard to comprehend. Indeed, Israel did little in '67. I'm talking about what they did before that, shortly after WWII, establishing their state. 1967 would have been about the time the Palestinians saw what a shitty condition their society was in compared to Israel and decided to try and take what Israel had by starting a war, which was the reason for a military occupation afterwards. Do I need to document this? Do I need a source? I thought it was common knowledge that Israel did not just decide on a whim in 1967 to expand its borders, that it was actually fighting a small war. Military occupations are inevitable in such circumstances. 28 years is a long time, don't you think? If you are truly implying that it is merely the occupation that creates hate, rather than Palestine's corrupt government and state-supported brainwashing system, then this discussion is going nowhere fast. At least I've conceded to you that the occupation may be PARTIALLY responsible for their pain and suffering - but COMPLETELY responsible? Please, be rational. Maybe they "hate" the occupation because it's a constant reminder of their past and present failures with Israel? Perhaps you're right, but in the same category of law, we have extradition, deportation, imprisonment, and all other manners of law designed to deal with people who commit criminal acts. These people get their rights taken away because of their actions. The Iraqis that have been allowed to return to Iraq have not been running around killing Americas. They hated Saddam too, they fled to avoid becoming casualties of war but they really haven't indicated a deep resentment toward the Americans or a tendency to violence. If the USA had any reason to suspect that the returning Iraqis would go on a killing spree, things might be different. The way I see it, the Palestinians lost their right of return when they went to war in 1967. And they reaffirmed that loss with their "intifada", and are constantly reaffirming it today with Arafat and his support of Hamas. If Palestine will do nothing to curb its own terrorism, then why should Israel voluntarily let these same violent people reside in their state? Are they to believe, as you tell us, that the Palestinian violence is merely a side-effect of their suffering and will magically disappear when the occupation is ended? If so, I hope you're joking. You're confusing present and future, it seems. They may be the 4th most powerful state now, as an isolated entity - but if you were to flood the state with 3 times as many Palestinians (being conservative here), their power would be divided, their money would be divided. If the Palestinians didn't take over with violence, they would take it over politically. I'm sure that if the Palestinians could somehow come up with an agreement that guaranteed the continued existence of a "Jewish" state along with that right of return, then they might be more receptive. But then, for Arafat, that would really defeat the purpose wouldn't it? Indeed, I don't dispute the credibility of that source, and in fact I never really disputed your statistics. I guess the point is, as VanFleet pointed out, we don't seem to have a similar site for Palestine to give some objectivity to the situation. Sure, Israel has done some nasty things, but so has Palestine, what exactly is the point in arguing over who killed how many? One is too many! That is exactly the reason I say this, because in your eyes anyone who does not fully support the Palestinians is by definition an Israel supporter. It is not black-and-white, I am not on either side. Perhaps I sympathize with Israel because they are actually sensitive to the situation and seem to have a genuine aim for peace. At least, we can say with certainty that they did before Sharon came along - with him it's hard to say, I admit, but with Arafat it's a clear NO. Well, if you're going to lead a rebellion, don't expect an *objective* person not to question your motivation. And even if I were to accept your motivation - the Palestinians' motivation - that's a far cry from accepting their methods. |
Palestinian to understand Arafat read this.
http://www.paktoday.com/believe5.htm
Jonathan Tobin, Dec 5, 03.
The new biography of Arafat by think-tank scholar Barry Rubin and his wife, journalist Judith Colp Rubin, Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography, essential reading for anyone hoping to comprehend the situation.
The couple, who has been studying their subject for decades, assert that the rejection of Barak's peace offer at Camp David in July 2000 is the key to their thesis about Arafat. Had his primary goal been to establish a Palestinian state and improve the situation of his people, then he would have said yes to that offer, or to the even better deal offered several months later at Taba, Egypt. But his refusal left them with no alternative but to conclude that he was primarily a "romantic revolutionary."
His career has been, they assert, a remarkable paradox. He has been the unchallenged leader of the Palestinians for decades; he also created the paradigm for modern terrorism, and managed the incredible feat of simultaneously carrying out mass murder while garnering sympathy from the Western press.
But his brethren have gotten little from this. The authors write that the "ultimate irony" of Arafat's life is that "the man who did more than anyone else to champion and advance the Palestinian cause also inflicted years of unnecessary suffering on his people, delaying any beneficial redress of their grievances or solutions to their problems."
The book shows that Arafat has repeated the same pattern in every chapter of his life. His goal is to give the other side the impression that just one more concession is all that's needed to achieve peace. After he receives that concession, he asks for more. He is a great negotiator, able to wear down his opponents. But the man doesn't know how to say yes, and has let every chance for a deal go by the wayside.
Part of this is his well-established habit of using front groups - which he pretends are radical dissident factions - to do the dirty work for him. That makes Arafat look "moderate," and literally allows him to get away with murder.
The most famous example of this was the so-called "Black September" terrorist group that carried out the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre. That pattern was repeated in the last three years with the establishment of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade to carry out terrorism against Israelis. Reputable news organizations still carry Arafat's condemnations of their atrocities without noting that he is the paymaster and ultimate commander of the group.
Despite the siege imposed on him by Israel, he has maintained his mafia-like control over virtually every aspect of Palestinian life. Those who imagine that an alternative leadership might emerge while he's alive are kidding themselves.
An immovable obstacle
And that's where the latest talk about peace runs straight into a brick wall. As the couple's scholarship illustrates, Arafat is obsessed not with founding a nation, but by the fear that history will portray him as the man who "sold Palestine to the Jews." By that, he means legitimizing the Jewish presence in any part of the country, including Israel in its pre-1967 borders.
He is, therefore, the primary and immovable obstacle to any chance of peace. That means that the Bush administration policy seeking to eliminate him from the peace process is quite right. But given the fact that all proposed alternatives to him are mere feints, the administration's push for Israeli concessions to encourage such alternatives are as wrong-headed as their conclusions about Arafat are correct.
Someday, Arafat will die, and that may change things. It is possible that his successors will be better. But given the dynamic of hate for Israel and Jews that has governed Palestinian life - especially education - under Arafat, there is little reason for optimism. Arafat's legacy of rejectionism may well doom peace efforts for the foreseeable future and beyond.
That is not a comforting thought, and I don't doubt that many will continue chipping away at Israel's bargaining position to reach an objective that simply cannot be achieved. Such persons will accuse the realists of dooming the Jewish people to endless conflict. But the truth is, that choice has already been made by the other side.
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