Palestinians Against Arafat: A Palestinian Speaks

[MMMMMM]

Sami el-Soudi talks about what happened at the meeting in Mouqata'a on Sept. 11, and why some influential Palestinians are reaching the conclusion that Arafat is harming the Palestinian cause and people--and that he should be overthrown.

translated with express permission from the Metula News Agency

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9930

[ACPlayer]

So, let them elect a new president the next time. Just like we will.

[Chris Alger]

This is exactly the sort of discussion that this forum could use more of.

[Cyrus]

Arafat's regime has deteriorated into corruption, cronyism and autocracy. In the process, it has rendered quite a disservice to the cause of the Palestinians.

But is Arafat, truly harmful to the Israeli cause? I submit that the Israeli objective is essentially to discredit the Palestinian cause so much that independence becomes unthinkable to the world community. And Arafat, through his many mistakes, partially caused by the faults in his governance, is paving the way for that objective, however indirectly.

A consequent and valid question is, then, if Arafat has been really as dangerous to Israeli security or objectives as all those Palestinian leaders that are executed on a routine basis by Israel, why is he still alive?? Technical difficulties cannot be seriously argued. Nor the "reaction of the intertnational community" -- which is as important to Israel as camel dung.

But that's coffeehouse speculation, probably. What's truly important as a question, is this : Is Israel prepared to make a deal with Arafat's heir ? If the old man is removed from power and replaced by an elected representative to negotiate the American roadmap's implementation with Israel, what will Israel do ? At the end of the road in that roadmap lies full Palestinian independence -- not autonomy, but independence. Since the very concept is anathema to Zionists, one has to be very sceptical as to the true causes behind the current indignant reaction of Israel and the US towards Arafat's regime.

--Cyrus

[Gamblor]

Will Jews be permitted in Palestine?
Not legally, i mean on the street. Will they be guaranteed safety?

[ACPlayer]

Well, in this model if they are Israeli citizens, or US citizens they will go to the Palesitinian embassy, request a visa, just like Hindus, Christians, Buddhists to enter another soveriegn nation.

Assuming they are granted a visa and have proper clearance, then they should be guaranteed the same protection of law offered others from outside Palestine.

If they are there without papers, then, they are liable to be thrown in jail and appropriate deportaation proceedings started.

Does that help explain what an independent sovereign Palestine means?

[Gamblor]

You misunderstand.

Legally, I doubt there will be any significant discrimination.

I'm talking on the street. Where it seems that the PA is irrelevant and Hamas is the champion of public opinion.

There is a real sentiment that a Palestinian state is just a backdoor to the eventual destruction of the Jewish state.

[ACPlayer]

Well, if there is an Israeli or hindu or christain in fear for his life does not have to visit Palestine. Just as, I may not want to travel to Pakistan bacause i dont think its safe. I was warned repeatedly not to live in Johannesburg, at the time that I did, because it was not considered safe.

Similarly, if the Jews presently living in a territory that becomes part of Palestine, he/she can immigrate to, and will I know be welcomed in, Israel.

Does that help.

Travelling in parts of New York can be dangerous, I just dont go there.

[Gamblor]

And that is exactly why there must never be a Palestinian state.

Johannesburg and NYC are liberal western cities.

Now imagine another Mecca or Baghdad for westerners. Which is exactly what will happen in "Palestine".

In Israel, the people are relatively tolerant. Arabs in Israel, in fact have it much better than Arabs in Arab countries!
(judging by average income, education, health, etc)

Why give another dictatorship a chance to wreak havoc?

Which is exactly what I've been saying all along.


1) You can't have your own state, its too dangerous for us.
2) You can't have our state, its too dangerous for us.
3) Find someone else to bomb and terrorize because we're not interested in dealing unless we see no bombs and no terrorists.

[ACPlayer]

And how did you get the Must from NY and Jo Burg being liberal western cities (I must tell my Afrikaner acquitances about that description of their city. They think it is under siege.

[ACPlayer]

You still have not come up with what you want to do with the 3 million people there, except perhaps that they somehow go away.

[Cyrus]

Gamblor wrote , addressing the Palestinians,

"1) You can't have your own state, its too dangerous for us.
2) You can't have our state, its too dangerous for us."

If you add to the above, the official policy of "You can't ever have fully equal rights as the Jews in our state", well, the future is pretty clearly mapped out for all Palestinians -- all three million of them :

"Either you accept that you shall always be second-class citizens in Israel or you are going to be ethnically cleansed",

to coin a verb. I don't know how that translates in Hebrew but I'm sure it can be worked to a nice gleeful chant!

[Gamblor]

Post deleted by Gamblor

[Gamblor]

"Either you accept that you shall always be second-class citizens in Israel

You will not be citizens in Israel. Second class or otherwise. Mandate of Israel: to be the JEWISH homeland. Screw everyone else, they can live anywhere in peace and security. We've been through enough to know that when the world goes to hell, they blame the Jews. So we're taking our slice of land, so you can blame us all, but not kill us all.

or you are going to be ethnically cleansed",

If you are referring to the genocide of Palestinians I can assure you Israelis and even Sharon don't give enough of a sh*t about them to even bother trying to kill them all. If you are referring to kicking them out of Israel because they represent a direct threat to the existence of each and every Jew, then yes, ethnically cleansed.

[nicky g]

"If you are referring to kicking them out of Israel because they represent a direct threat to my existence as a Jew, then yes, ethnically cleansed. "

And when you say Israel, you include "Judea and Samaria" and Gaza, right?

[Cyrus]

Gw'an admit it! All this trouble to offer us your views as if they are something humanitarian, something universally admirable, something worth defending -- it's just not worth it, right?

I'm so happy for you. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

"You will not be citizens in Israel. Second class or otherwise. Mandate of Israel: to be the JEWISH homeland. Screw everyone else ... we're taking our slice of land ... kicking [all the Palestinians] out of Israel because they represent a direct threat to the existence of each and every Jew ... yes, ethnically cleansed."

It took some goading but it's finally out. (I will send you my bill by PM tomorrow.)

[Gamblor]

Oh relax...

I said all that because i knew that's what you wanted to hear /images/graemlins/grin.gif

But there are a few legitimate points in there.

As far as "screw everyone else" goes, I can assure you we have no desire to screw everyone - Jews have been screwed so much that the collective Jewish [censored] is looser than that calling station at the 10-20 at Rama. Any more screwing and we'll never be able to hold it in for a couple more minutes again.

And yes, if they represent a direct threat to my life as many of them do, they will be cleansed. Not ethnic cleansing, danger cleansing. I don't see a conflict with humanitarian values here. Shame a few bad apples had to ruin it for the whole crew over there. Checkpoints, "incursions", etc. Not to humiliate. To prevent the 1 in 10,000 who actually have a bomb strapped to them from killing another 20 people. And if 10,000 are inconvenienced to save the lives of my friends and family, I'll just have to make that sacrifice. And so will they.

[nicky g]

"I don't see a conflict with humanitarian values here. "

*coughs*

[Gamblor]

Do you ignore the entire post on purpose or just look for something - anything - to disagree with and simply present your opinion?

[nicky g]

You are right - I misread your post, and assumed that by danger cleansing" you were referring to ethnic cleansing by a different name. I withdraw my cough, and apologise, though I do not believe that the current occupation merely amounts to an "inconvenience". Note: This post has been completely changed from what it said before, when I writing under a misapprehension about what Gambloor was suggesting by "danger cleansing."

[Gamblor]

OOH!!!!!!!

Dem's fightin words!

You didn't by chance go to Notre Dame did you?

For anyone who doesn't know, Notre Dame is french for "Our Lady", except it's not noh-ter daym, it's not-reh damm.

Anyone else see the humour in having a school called "Our Lady" nicknamed the "Fighting Irish"?

Women's lib must have been a lot of fun in Ireland.

[nicky g]

They're not fighting words any more. But for anyone interested, I wrote that I disagreed with virtually everything G says. Which is more or less true.

I've got no idea what you're talking about re Notre Dame.

[Gamblor]

You're irish, and the combative tone of your original post reminded me of the "Fighting Irish", the Notre Dame football team - the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Which got me thinking - why associate a Catholic university called "Our Lady" with fighting irishmen? I think that's a lot worse than Redskins, or Braves, Blackhawks, or all the other names that had the Native American community up in arms for so many years.

The logo is a leprechaun with his fists in the air ready to swing away.

Why don't they just call it the Notre Dame Stinking-drunk, what-are-you-looking-at, puke-in-your underwear Irish?

Like if they're going to perpetuate a stereotype, why not do it in style?

[nicky g]

I don't know. You'd have to ask them.

[Gamblor]

It was rhetorical... i hope you weren't taking that too seriously./images/graemlins/confused.gif

[Gamblor]

This may shed some light on the matter.

Wall Street Journal, Monday Sept 22, 2003

The KGB's Man

By ION MIHAI PACEPA

The Israeli government has vowed to expel Yasser Arafat, calling him an "obstacle" to peace. But the 72-year-old Palestinian leader is much more than that; he is a career terrorist, trained, armed and bankrolled by the Soviet Union and its satellites for decades.

Before I defected to America from Romania, leaving my post as chief of Romanian intelligence, I was responsible for giving Arafat about $200,000 in laundered cash every month throughout the 1970s. I also sent two cargo planes to Beirut a week, stuffed with uniforms and supplies. Other Soviet bloc states did much the same. Terrorism has been extremely profitable for Arafat. According to Forbes magazine, he is today the sixth wealthiest among the world's "kings, queens & despots," with more than $300 million stashed in Swiss bank accounts.

* * *
"I invented the hijackings [of passenger planes]," Arafat bragged when I first met him at his PLO headquarters in Beirut in the early 1970s. He gestured toward the little red flags pinned on a wall map of the world that labeled Israel as "Palestine." "There they all are!" he told me, proudly. The dubious honor of inventing hijacking actually goes to the KGB, which first hijacked a U.S. passenger plane in 1960 to Communist Cuba. Arafat's innovation was the suicide bomber, a terror concept that would come to full flower on 9/11.

In 1972, the Kremlin put Arafat and his terror networks high on all Soviet bloc intelligence services' priority list, including mine. Bucharest's role was to ingratiate him with the White House. We were the bloc experts at this. We'd already had great success in making Washington -- as well as most of the fashionable left-leaning American academics of the day -- believe that Nicolae Ceausescu was, like Josip Broz Tito, an "independent" Communist with a "moderate" streak.

KGB chairman Yuri Andropov in February 1972 laughed to me about the Yankee gullibility for celebrities. We'd outgrown Stalinist cults of personality, but those crazy Americans were still naïve enough to revere national leaders. We would make Arafat into just such a figurehead and gradually move the PLO closer to power and statehood. Andropov thought that Vietnam-weary Americans would snatch at the smallest sign of conciliation to promote Arafat from terrorist to statesman in their hopes for peace.

Right after that meeting, I was given the KGB's "personal file" on Arafat. He was an Egyptian bourgeois turned into a devoted Marxist by KGB foreign intelligence. The KGB had trained him at its Balashikha special-ops school east of Moscow and in the mid-1960s decided to groom him as the future PLO leader. First, the KGB destroyed the official records of Arafat's birth in Cairo, replacing them with fictitious documents saying that he had been born in Jerusalem and was therefore a Palestinian by birth.

The KGB's disinformation department then went to work on Arafat's four-page tract called "Falastinuna" (Our Palestine), turning it into a 48-page monthly magazine for the Palestinian terrorist organization al-Fatah. Arafat had headed al-Fatah since 1957. The KGB distributed it throughout the Arab world and in West Germany, which in those days played host to many Palestinian students. The KGB was adept at magazine publication and distribution; it had many similar periodicals in various languages for its front organizations in Western Europe, like the World Peace Council and the World Federation of Trade Unions.

Next, the KGB gave Arafat an ideology and an image, just as it did for loyal Communists in our international front organizations. High-minded idealism held no mass-appeal in the Arab world, so the KGB remolded Arafat as a rabid anti-Zionist. They also selected a "personal hero" for him -- the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, the man who visited Auschwitz in the late 1930s and reproached the Germans for not having killed even more Jews. In 1985 Arafat paid homage to the mufti, saying he was "proud no end" to be walking in his footsteps.

Arafat was an important undercover operative for the KGB. Right after the 1967 Six Day Arab-Israeli war, Moscow got him appointed to chairman of the PLO. Egyptian ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser, a Soviet puppet, proposed the appointment. In 1969 the KGB asked Arafat to declare war on American "imperial-Zionism" during the first summit of the Black Terrorist International, a neo-Fascist pro-Palestine organization financed by the KGB and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. It appealed to him so much, Arafat later claimed to have invented the imperial-Zionist battle cry. But in fact, "imperial-Zionism" was a Moscow invention, a modern adaptation of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and long a favorite tool of Russian intelligence to foment ethnic hatred. The KGB always regarded anti-Semitism plus anti-imperialism as a rich source of anti-Americanism.

The KGB file on Arafat also said that in the Arab world only people who were truly good at deception could achieve high status. We Romanians were directed to help Arafat improve "his extraordinary talent for deceiving." The KGB chief of foreign intelligence, General Aleksandr Sakharovsky, ordered us to provide cover for Arafat's terror operations, while at the same time building up his international image. "Arafat is a brilliant stage manager," his letter concluded, "and we should put him to good use." In March 1978 I secretly brought Arafat to Bucharest for final instructions on how to behave in Washington. "You simply have to keep on pretending that you'll break with terrorism and that you'll recognize Israel -- over, and over, and over," Ceausescu told him for the umpteenth time. Ceausescu was euphoric over the prospect that both Arafat and he might be able to snag a Nobel Peace Prize with their fake displays of the olive branch.

In April 1978 I accompanied Ceausescu to Washington, where he charmed President Carter. Arafat, he urged, would transform his brutal PLO into a law-abiding government-in-exile if only the U.S. would establish official relations. The meeting was a great success for us. Carter hailed Ceausescu, dictator of the most repressive police state in Eastern Europe, as a "great national and international leader" who had "taken on a role of leadership in the entire international community." Triumphant, Ceausescu brought home a joint communiqué in which the American president stated that his friendly relations with Ceausescu served "the cause of the world."

* * *
Three months later I was granted political asylum by the U.S. Ceausescu failed to get his Nobel Peace Prize. But in 1994 Arafat got his -- all because he continued to play the role we had given him to perfection. He had transformed his terrorist PLO into a government-in-exile (the Palestinian Authority), always pretending to call a halt to Palestinian terrorism while letting it continue unabated. Two years after signing the Oslo Accords, the number of Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists had risen by 73%.

On Oct. 23, 1998, President Clinton concluded his public remarks to Arafat by thanking him for "decades and decades and decades of tireless representation of the longing of the Palestinian people to be free, self-sufficient, and at home." The current administration sees through Arafat's charade but will not publicly support his expulsion. Meanwhile, the aging terrorist has consolidated his control over the Palestinian Authority and marshaled his young followers for more suicide attacks.

Mr. Pacepa was the highest ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc. The author of "Red Horizons" (Regnery, 1987), he is finishing a book on the origins of current anti-Americanism.

[Cyrus]

Gamblor, in standard operating mode, will now attempt to downplay or even joke about his revealing outburst. Pay no attention to the desperate backtracking.

This is the end objective of Zionist policy for all the land that is curtrently under direct Israeli command : To ethnically cleanse it, colonize and annex it, as an integral part of Greater Israel.

The reasons given for any ethnically cleansing policy are virtual cliches throughout History : National security, danger from inside, existence of undefined and mysterious but deadly threats, inexplicable terrorism, racial inferiority of the opposition, collective guilt assigned to the opposing race, etc.

Here's the confessional, in all its closure glory :

"If you are referring to the genocide of Palestinians I can assure you Israelis and even Sharon don't give enough of a sh*t about them to even bother trying to kill them all. If you are referring to kicking them out of Israel because they represent a direct threat to the existence of each and every Jew, then yes,<font color="red"> ethnically cleansed </font>."

[Cyrus]

The amount of ignorance displayed in that article challenges even what you post here, I'm afraid.

"Nasser, a Soviet puppet"?! This preposterous claim ignores all the historical evidence about the anti-communist Nasser, who, like most Arab leaders, was practically forced by the United States' unqualified support towards Israel, to seek help in the opposite camp and ask the Soviets for military assistance. Wwhich he got, grudgingly (USSRS did not want to get involved in the lose/lose arena of the Middle East) and with the Soviets never really gwetting on with the Egyptians or their leader. (For anyone who doesn't know it, the glorious Union of Soviet Socialist Republics voted in the UN in favor of the creation of Israel, while the United States was indifferent, if not opposed, to such a scheme, and much more in favor of granting "self-determination" to the people in the British Mandate of Palestine. It was the decent anti-colonialist stance that US was adopting immediately after WWII.)

"Ceausescu charmed Carter", the ex-spook says and expects us to gasp at Carter's naivete. Get a grip, Bucharest scum! The Ceausescu you loyally served was actually celebrated everywhere in the West as a prick in the Soviet's back. Particularly by the hardliners of the Right. Ceausescu was hailed as a "liberal communist", someone who was not stepping in line with Soviet orthodoxy, the new Tito, and other such crap. Carter was simply following the standard western line towards Rumania. A ton of western press articles will support this if anyone's too young or simply unware.

The ex-spook's credibility worsens even more when he tackles Arafat, the obvious choice for any article nowdays by an ex-spook. Mostly a bunch of half-cooked and re-cooked stuff. There is ample evidence that surfaced (eg Mitrokhin) after the Soviet Union's collapse, suggesting that Soviet and Rumanian intelignece did not have at all the kind of collaboration or the kind of commander/subordinate that the ex-spook suggests ("The KGB chief of foreign intelligence, General Aleksandr Sakharovsky, ordered us to ...", etc).

I will not dispute that Arafat's origins are not as glorious or as clean-cut Palestinian as he claims them. I will not dispute either that Arafat, like many other national liberation movement leaders of the time, possibly received training in Eastern Bloc camps, during the Cold War. This was the unfortunate and most detrimental consequence of the West's stance towards those liberatioon movements. (The early, post-WWII anti-colonialist stance of the US was replaced by the neo-colonialism of the US itself!) But the graduates of such schools did not become indoctrinated Mosccow automata, as the West liked to depict them. In fact, some of them even completely abandoned socialism in favor of capitalism, as soon as they got in power!

Does this alleged "KGB connection" make Arafat, a hugely popular and many-times elected leader of the Palestinians, a Russian stooge, as the article intimates?? This is quite preposterous and laughable for anyone who has a clear but whole perwpective. Arafat survived, and in the process the whole Palestinian cause survived, because he managed to play one side against another, in the many-sided arena of the Middle East :
He was with the Egyptians, only to part ways with Sadat and have armed fights with Egyptian soldiers; he was with the Libyans until Qaddafi despaired of ever bringing the secular Palestinians under the Muslim tent; he was with the Syrians, until Assad made a power play and started killing them; he was with Jordan, until Black September 1970; he was with Lebanon, until the Christians decided to make a grab for power; etc. Not exactly a story full of successes but actually the only way to survive among his "arab brothers" who have probably killed more Palestinians than Israel ever has.

..But Arafat a "Russian stooge"? Pull the other one.

[MMMMMM]

Cyrus: "National security, danger from inside, existence of undefined and mysterious but deadly threats, inexplicable terrorism, racial inferiority of the opposition, collective guilt assigned to the opposing race, etc."


Well Cyrus you can't deny that a people who so widely support a pure terrorist organization like Hamas do represent something of a danger, at the very least.

Have any oppressed peoples throughout history ever been more pro-terrorist in mindset and actions than the Palestinians? Just wondering.

[MMMMMM]

Whether or not he was a Russian stooge, Arafat was, is, and always will be a terrorist. First and foremost that is his calling. His second calling is to siphon money intended for Palestinian aid into his own most worshipful bank accounts. His third calling apparently is to find a way to ruin the Palestinian people entirely before he passes from this Earth.

Chris Alger: "Why? What's he done?"

Better he should never have been born than that he should have invented suicide bombing.

[nicky g]

"Better he should never have been born than that he should have invented suicide bombing. "

What's the evidence for Arafat having invented suicide bombing? Maybe he did, but I'd like to see some evidence.

[Gamblor]

As is typical of low-lifes like Cyrus, the attack is taken out of context and isolated on a specific part of the argument rather than on the argument as a whole - simply so everyone reading it will only see what an evil person I am, supporting "ethnic cleansing". What a joke.

[ QUOTE ]
As far as "screw everyone else" goes, I can assure you we have no desire to screw everyone - Jews have been screwed so much that the collective Jewish [censored] is looser than that calling station at the 10-20 at Rama. Any more screwing and we'll never be able to hold it in for a couple more minutes again.

And yes, if they represent a direct threat to my life as many of them do, they will be cleansed. Not ethnic cleansing, danger cleansing. I don't see a conflict with humanitarian values here. Shame a few bad apples had to ruin it for the whole crew over there. Checkpoints, "incursions", etc. Not to humiliate. To prevent the 1 in 10,000 who actually have a bomb strapped to them from killing another 20 people. And if 10,000 are inconvenienced to save the lives of my friends and family, I'll just have to make that sacrifice. And so will they.


[/ QUOTE ]

As far as your claims of cliched use of national security as a basis for "ethnic cleansing"

1) You did not define ethnic cleansing for me, which was the purpose of my post: So I ask again: Is it the murder of all non-Jews in Israel, or the deportation of all non-Jews in Israel - which begs the following question: Is being Jewish a) an ethnicity? b)religion? Or c) a nation? I would argue that if it were c), which most Jews believe it is, then it would be the same as Canada refusing entry to any Americans. Which I'm quite sure would not receive much fanfare south of the border. Jews are a nation with a common religion, not a religion creating a common nation.

2) Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

But please, find the one line you take issue with and write a post about the one line, and ignore everything else. It's more fun that way. Tangents are far more exciting than directed discussion.

[Gamblor]

I'd like to see some evidence that you're from London, UK.

Maybe you are. But evidence.

If everyone says the sky is blue, and the sky looks blue, dammit, the sky is blue.

As far as Arafat's death goes, It's a foregone conclusion of the Israeli public that when he finally does start warming up and good ol' Luci finally meets him, he has no intention of going quietly. His cronies most certainly have orders to fire an M16 bullet into his heart or something similar - giving the world and the media the impression that the evil Israelis did it. You'll see.

[nicky g]

Refusing entry is not the same as deporting existing populations. Deporting existing populations is ethnic cleansing. Furthermore the West Bank and the Gaza Strip aren't in Israel.

[Gamblor]

Furthermore the West Bank and the Gaza Strip aren't in Israel.

That, my friend, is a matter of opinion.

[nicky g]

No, it's not. It's a matter of opinion whether they should be in Israel or not, whether Israel has a right to them or not. But they are not within the recognised borders of the state of Israel.

[MMMMMM]

Wasn't he also behind some famous terrorist attacks and hijackings from decades ago?

Well nicky if you'd like to see some evidence why don't you look it up. Bet you'll find it.

[Gamblor]

One opinion (http://www.mof.gov.il/itc/images/map.jpg)

Same opinion (http://www.ithaca.edu/hillel/israel.gif)

Same opinion (http://www.tax-refund.co.il/Branches/map.gif)

Other Opinion (http://www.ranchgazette.com/intl/israel/israel.jpg)

Other Opinion (http://www.sdaisrael.org/images/israel.gif)

Ask an Israeli, and a fair number will tell you Israel goes from the Meditteranean to the Jordan.

[nicky g]

"Ask an Israeli, and a fair number will tell you Israel goes from the Meditteranean to the Jordan."


Ugh. This is like arguing with Rainman. Try to understand. That is what they believe they are entitled to. That is what they believe biblical Israel is, and what the modern state of Israel should be. That is not the same as the territory of the state of Israel as it actually is. There is a difference between these people's ideological conceptions of "Israel", and the exisiting state of Israel. The Occupied Territories do not fall within the boundaries of the state of Israel.

[nicky g]

"Wasn't he also behind some famous terrorist attacks and hijackings from decades ago?"

The PLO was. How this is the same as Arafat inventing the suicide bomb makes no sense to me, given that these weren't suicide bombing attacks.

I did look it up, and in my brief search found no evidence to sugggest that Arafat invented the tactic of the suicide bomb. Some attributed it to Hamas, which is wrong, as they started using the tactic in the early 90s and were preceeded by both the Tamil Tigers (whose leader at least one site claimed as the inventor of the tactic), and the bombing of the Marines barracks in Beirut, which was carried out by Hezbollah, not the PLO. (Still, all teh same these bloody arabs, eh). Some attributed the tactic to the Japanese (ie Kamikaze attacks). One went back to the 10th century. Beyond some Zionist sites describing Arafat as "the inventor of suicide bombing"
but offering no evidence or analysis to show this, I found nothing that would suggest Yasser Arafat invented the tactic of suicide bombing, or any evidence that the PLO engaged in suicide bombings, unless you count the al-Asqa brigades (affiliated with Fatah, I think), which only came into existence during the present intfada. So if you want to keep the claim, I suggest you look for some evidence.

[nicky g]

Here's a short account from an Indian website, which suggests that modern suicide bombing started with an Iranian-sponsored attack on Iraq, and was popluarised by Hezbollah and the Tamil Tigers. No reference to Arafat, the PLO, or Fatah. Can we agree that Arafat did not invent the tactic of suicide bombing?

"The contemporary chapter of suicide terrorism dawned in April 1983 when Hezbollah attacked the American Embassy in Beirut and later devastated the US Marines&amp;#8217; headquarters in October the same year in Lebanon. But a view obtains that it started with the bombing of the Iraqi embassy in Beirut in December 1981, sponsored by Iran as a part of Iran-Iraq war. El-Dawa of Kuwait adopted these tactics in December 1983. On witnessing the Hezbollah&amp;#8217;s rise to notoriety, the LTTE used this tactic in its first attack on 5 July 1987. Presently the LTTE is the most successful outfit in using this modus operandi. It operates a specialized unit &amp;#8211; Black Tigers &amp;#8211; for this purpose. Later Hamas in Palestine, Gama&amp;#8217;a al-Islamiya and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in Egypt, Kurdistan Workers&amp;#8217; Party (PKK) in Turkey, Lashkar-e-Toiba in Kashmir, and al Quaeda in various parts of the world have demonstrated with deadly effect the tactical advantages suicide terrorism has over conventional terrorist attacks. Now, it is all pervasive and has been used by over 17 terrorist organizations across the globe. Contemporary suicide attacks are extensive in their destruction and casualties and intensive in their psychological effect as compared to target-specific attacks in earlier periods of history. Another distinguishing feature is the utilization of women as suicide bombers. The next stage in evolving this &amp;#8220;weapon of martyrdom&amp;#8221; could be more lethal, devastating, gruesome, and novel."

History of Suicide Attacks (http://www.ipcs.org/ipcs/kashmirLevel2.jsp?action=showView&amp;kValue=448&amp;subCa tID=1022&amp;mod=g)

[Gamblor]

1) Palestinian government that does NOT include Yasser Arafat. Arafat cannot be there, period. Not as a symbolic leader, not in his current capacity as the head of the whole pile of piss. The man has proven time and time again he is not to be trusted, ever. With Arafat so the Palestinian government and legislative council (basically the PLO) should be gone. The new Palestinian leadership must be closely supervised by the US and/or the international community.

2) The new leadership must call for and enforce the end of Palestinian terrorism. Obviously the terror groups won't simply obey the new government, but the first test for the new Palestinian leadership. If it can't control the Hamas, Fateh Tanzim, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades there is no reason for Israel even bother talking to them.

3) Israel should evacuate all the illegal outposts and withdrawal to September 28, 2000 lines (preintifada). Illegal outposts, whatever ideology they are rooted in, are against government policy and should be evacuated - not symbolically evacuated, actually evacuated. This goodwill gesture would be perceived as so by the Palestinians and the rest of the world. The IDF can withdrawal, as well as return, to this lines in a matter of a few hours. If the cease fire is enforced by the Palestinians over their radicals the plan continues. If not, the IDF goes back in.

4) After months of no terrorism, interim negotiations a la Oslo can begin. In the end, most of the settlements will be dismantled. The biggest ones like Ariel near the Green Line have around 80% of the settler population: This is to be annexed by Israel, as well as those of Jewish religious significance such as Hevron. In return the Palestinian should be given equal amount of land from Israel. Possible locations include areas with large Israeli Arab populations such as Umm el Fahem, etc. This will reduce the number of Arabs inside the state of Israel and will help keep Israel Jewish.

6) The border between Israel and the Palestinian state will be fenced and heavily secured with gates, checkpoints, inspections. After a probation period, limited traffic will be allowed through for economic reasons. The new Palestinian state must be 100% demilitarized and under strict international supervision for at least 20-30 years.

7) Any violation of any of the provisions will result in immediate re"occupation" of the entire West Bank and Gaza.

[MMMMMM]

So what's the difference? As you agreed, the PLO was behind some terrorist attacks and hijackings decades ago. Arafat was leader of the PLO. That makes him a terrorist. I still can't get over CA's plaintive query, "Why? What's he done?" The bastard is a terrorist and if he didn't invent suicide bombings he still orchestrated hijackings, terror attacks and probably suicide bombings (then or more recently).

Terrorists should be killed: not coddled, elevated to world statemanship, and made wealthy.

[Cyrus]

"Wasn't [Arafat] also behind some famous terrorist attacks and hijackings from decades ago?"

Yeah and I bet he farts real loud too.

...Isn't it nice how this "discussion" is going? They accuse Arafat of QUOTE inventing suicide bombings UNQUOTE and when they are called on it, they change the subject!

[Cyrus]

"The PLO was behind some terrorist attacks and hijackings decades ago. Arafat was leader of the PLO. That makes him a terrorist. And if he didn't invent suicide bombings he still orchestrated hijackings, terror attacks and probably suicide bombings (then or more recently)."

Arafat did not "invent" (what a word!) suicide bombings. Get your facts straight.

Nor is Arafat able to do anything about suicide bombings --- thanks to the Israelis : The Israelis first prop up Hamas. Then the Israelis completely strip Arafat from any power whatsoever. And now they ask him to "stop the bombings or else".

"Terrorists should be killed: not coddled, elevated to world statemanship..."

Bullcrap. Menahem Begin was a far bloodier terrorist than Yassir Arafat ever hoped to be and look how Begin "suffered" for it.

[Cyrus]

Let's see. One opinion (http://www.mof.gov.il/itc/images/map.jpg) is from the Israeli Foreign Ministry, currently run by some of the most virulent nationalists one can find in any government on the planet! Nice graphics, though.

Next "opinion" (http://www.ithaca.edu/hillel/israel.gif) is from the Jewish students' website at Ithaca College. And I like it when these students say that "Ithaca is 12% Jewish" /images/graemlins/smile.gif A dozen sarcastic comments about that 'un come to mind but I'll resist the temptation.

Next "opinion" (http://www.ranchgazette.com/) was from a Christian fundamentalist website. Nice try, although you are obviously ignorant of the deeply-held anti-semitism of the Christian Fundamentalist Right. Sooner or later it turns round and bites ya, but you folks get none the wiser. (I liked the article by that Michelle-something airhead that claimed everybody in America is "spitting on the graves" of the 9/11 victims!)

Once more, thanks, terrific routine. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[MMMMMM]

No Cyrus I'm just too lazy to look stuff up and I don't have anything to prove. And whether he invented suicide bombing or orchestrated terror attacks and hijackings, or both, he should have been killed or imprisoned long ago.

[MMMMMM]

Well if Arafat has no power he shouldn't be the leader of the Palestinians. No power, my foot. Hundreds of millions in the bank, and control of most of the security appparatus, is no power? And don't tell me you think he doesn't give orders for suicide bombings on the QT.

[nicky g]

"control of most of the security appparatus"

Maybe you issed the bit here Israel destroyed the Palestinian security services at the start of the intifadah.

"And don't tell me you think he doesn't give orders for suicide bombings on the QT. "

Evidence? Oh, I forgot, you guys don't accept or provide evidence any more, and we should just accept everything the pro-Israeli right says as gospel.

[MMMMMM]

Well why didn't Arafat turn over control of most of the PA security apparatus to Abu Mazen, then, if it was so useless? Mazen complained bitterly about that.

nicky, I strongly suspect Arafat gives QT orders or suggestions to suicide bombings. After all, he started the Intifadah. Only a fool would think he probably doesn't instead of he probably does give such orders or QT go-aheads. But I forget, it's chic these days to assume the best instead of the worst of terrorists and tyrants, and to demand proof of what should be everyone's reasonable suspicions.

You can't apply civil law standards of proof to international or military affairs, nicky. Often you just have to go by what's most likely. Otherwise you will get bogged down indefinitely.

Considering that Arafat started the intifada, do you really think he meant for them to do it without suicide bombings??? Let's get real here. Obviously he meant to do it by suicide bombings because that's the only way they've done it.

[Gamblor]

After all, he started the Intifadah.

Actually, Barghouti started the intifada.

[nicky g]

I aked for evidence, any evidence, not proof.

"Considering that Arafat started the intifada, do you really think he meant for them to do it without suicide bombings??? "

The intifadah started as a popular uprising against the occupation; it was fuelled by years of frustration and resentment, brought to boiling point by the collapse of the negotations, and finally ignited when Israeli police shot and killed unarmed Arab protestors after Sharon's stunt at the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock. Arafat had no need to start it; it would have started of its own accord, as the first intifadah did. Incidentally, given that the first intifadah started as an unarmed uprising (marked largely by stone throwing and protest, and met by the Israelis with bullets, beatings and the systematic breaking of protestors' limbs), it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that one could set off a second intifadah without approving the use of suicide bombings - the two are not synonymous or inextricably linked. The wave of suicide bombings in the second intifadah began after the Israelis had already shot more than a hundred Palestinians in response to the second uprising.

[MMMMMM]

Well the intifadas are essentially long strings of suicide bombings.

You go look for proof if you want; I am already pretty sure what Arafat favors and supports.

The immense benefit of doubt you and many others give to terrorists and tyrants is truly mind-boggling.

[nicky g]

"Well the intifadas are essentially long strings of suicide bombings. "

No, they're not. The term just means uprising. The first intifadah started in 1987, and began as I said as stone-throwing, protests, civil disobedience etc; the first suicide bomb attack inside Israel was in 1994.

I can't believe the number of times you (and others) make a statement, and when asked to provide any evidence, state that it's well known, or that we're giving the benefit to terrorists, or that if we want evidence we should find it oursleves. That's not a very convincing strategy.

[Cyrus]

Nice ducking.

You posted that terrorists shouldn'ty be cozied up to and they shouldn't be allowed to become heads of states, etcetera, as has Arafat. I pointed out that Menahem Begin was more of a terrorist than Arafat ever dreamed of being.

I understand that you have nothing to say on this most obvious and total refutation of your argument.

[MMMMMM]

I know next to nothing about Begin therefore I have nothing to say about him. Also he isn't a head of state today but Arafat is the closest thing the Palestinians have to one.

[MMMMMM]

Ok so the second intifada has been one long string of suicide bombings then...right?

As I pointed out, trying to prove that certain leaders are up to no good is a complicated task but the fact that they arew up to no good should be rather obvious (lol here comes someone about Bush;-)).

[nicky g]

"Ok so the second intifada has been one long string of suicide bombings then...right?"

Yes, they've been a major feature of it. There are still distinctions to be made though - there are multiple organisations involved, with different goals and methods, and you can't equate stone-throwing youths with suicide bombers. Support for the intifadah does not necessarily mean support for the suicide bombings; it means support for a revolt agains the occupation.

[Cyrus]

..Sorry, I meant Take my word : Menahem Begin was a bona fide terrorist. He killed women and children. (But no Jews, so maybe that's the escape clause.)

Since Menahem Begin was a terrorist who had murdered innocent Palestinians and the Palestinians never raised any objections about negotiating and dealing with him, as Prime Minister of Israel, how come the Israelis refuse to deal with Arafat on that basis ? Even accepting that Arafat is a terrorist.

The above is a question addressed to the Israelis. The question I addressed to you, is : How can you apply a double standard when your own PM was a terrorist?

"NOT ONLY DEIR YASSIN" (http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/09/271216.shtml)

[MMMMMM]

I'll read your link and a bit more about Begin, but your question below isn't quite appropriate for me:

"The above is a question addressed to the Israelis. The question I addressed to you, is : How can you apply a double standard when your own PM was a terrorist?"

I don't think I've ever had a Prime Minister. My ancestors settled in this country before it became the United States of America, in the 1600's.

[Gamblor]

Terrorist: The State Department defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience." source: www.terrorism.com. (http://www.terrorism.com.)

It noted that the Irgun, led by Menachem Begin&amp;#8212;later to become prime minister of Israel in 1977&amp;#8212;who had a £2,000 price on his head, &amp;#8220;was responsible in the past for the liquidation of members of the police and the military whose activities have been judged especially worthy of Jewish resentment in Palestine.&amp;#8221; source: World Socialist Website www.wsws.com (http://www.wsws.com) Look at that - socialists are actually good for something.

This is freedom fighting. Not terrorism. Why? Because he is attacking "police and military". This is not "noncombatant targets."

It should be obvious that it's only terrorism when you're the one being attacked. The difference in this case, is that the Palestinians attack pizza shops, cafes, etc. If they were to attack army outposts, soldiers, tanks, then as much as I despise them, I could not say they are terrorists.

[Gamblor]

LOL

you say it like these people were simply demonstrating and suddenly out of nowhere comes the army.

I was there.

They were beating up soldiers who, as per their training, shot them in the LEGS. With RUBBER BULLETS.

Idiot.

[nicky g]

"They were beating up soldiers who, as per their training, shot them in the LEGS. With RUBBER BULLETS."

They were throwing their shoes at the soldiers. Would you care to explain how rubber bullets to the legs killed 15 of them?

[Gamblor]

What none of you seem to understand, is that whether or not Israel started this conflict is irrelevant.

If you give the terrorists/freedom fighters/militants - or whatever the buzzword is nowadays - what they want, if you give in even one iota, if you show them the slightest weakness, the floodgates open.

Spanish in New Mexico will bomb Vegas casinos because it is legitimate resistance. Forget peace in Ireland - the IRA will go straight to London to get Big Ben. Basques in Spain and France will topple the Eiffel Tower.

There won't be a single American, no matter what your political views, safe anywhere outside North America.

And if you though 9/11 was bad, wait til you see what these people are capable of. And if you don't think they all work together, officially or not, you're sorely mistaken. They are all cheering for each other, and waiting for the day the entire world is run by Shari'a (Muslim) law. Secular or otherwise.

Not all Muslims. THESE muslims.

Why will all this happen? Because they will realize that terrorism works. And they will never stop until they have conquered the world. It's like a drug - they push a little farther into immorality and justify it all the while. Until they realize that they can't do anything without it. And it's the only thing they know. See Palestinians

[nicky g]

You do what is right, whether terrorists are involved or not. This is especially crucial given that not doing what is right is what fuels the terrorists and garners them support in the first place.

[Cyrus]

"I don't think I've ever had a Prime Minister. My ancestors settled in this country before it became the United States of America, in the 1600's."

Apologies for my absent-mindedness. I thought I was responding to Gamblor.

"I'll read your link and a bit more about [Menahem] Begin."

Work with me, here. Assume that Begin was a terrorist! (If he wasn't, we will work with another example.)

Now then, if Menahem Begin was a terrorist like Yassir Arafat (some children more or less, no big deal...), then how can the Israelis elect a terrorist as their Prime Minister, yet you don't want the Palestinians to be represented by a terrorist ?

No need to look up any link to comment on that.

[Cyrus]

This is freedom fighting. Not terrorism. Why? Because he is attacking "police and military". This is not "noncombatant targets."

Bullcrap!

Do you deny that Menahem Begin was responsible, directly and indirectly, for the murder of many innocent men, women and children, all Palestinians?

...I warn you: this is not as obscure or mysterious as it appears to your un-historical mind. That Begin was a terrorist, he even bragged about it himself. But deny it at your cost.

[Cyrus]

"Spanish in New Mexico will bomb Vegas casinos because it is legitimate resistance. Forget peace in Ireland - the IRA will go straight to London to get Big Ben. Basques in Spain and France will topple the Eiffel Tower."

Just so that you're disabused of your fantasies :

Ex-IRA men join the North Ireland government. The Basques have been granted as much autonomy as can be, short of total independence. The Corsicans, which you forgot or don't know, got a similar deal.

Face it : The Palestinian struggle is viewed by most nations everywhere as a national liberation struggle. There was rarely a national liberation struggle in History without atrocities. Beyond the concerns and the protestations about terrorism, the United States supports the Palestinian cause, because it cannot deny its essential feature. The longer the Israelis try to depict that national liberation struggle as a merely terrorist affair, the longer we will be seeing bloodshed, by both sides.

[Gamblor]

The UN and the old devil

George Jonas National Post
Monday, September 22, 2003

As the United Nations General Assembly voted last week on an Arab-sponsored resolution to proscribe any action Israel might take against Yasser Arafat -- 133 for, four against, 15 abstentions, including Canada -- petitions popped up in my e-mail demanding: a) that the UN condemn terrorism; b) that the UN declare suicide bombings war crimes and have those who instigate them prosecuted as war criminals before the ICC, the International Criminal Court, and; c) to protest Canada's fence-sitting abstention in the General Assembly.

Though I agree with the petitions, I've two reasons for not signing them (or clicking on the appropriate boxes, as we do in the electronic age.) The minor reason is that as a columnist, I see my job as commenting on world events rather than signing petitions about them. The major reason is that it seems pointless to me to petition the enemy.

Comforting as it might be to pretend otherwise, if the enemy is terrorism, the UN and its sub-organizations, including the ICC, have become its big tent, sheltering, if not directly terrorists, then their cowardly, guilt-ridden, pseudo-sophisticated or confused apologists -- all those who can't tell the difference between being pragmatic and unprincipled. UN-types try to appease hijackers, suicide bombers and political assassins for various reasons. They include feelings of Western guilt and the sophomoric fallacy that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," and range from realpolitik to the naive belief that by appeasing murderers they can influence and rehabilitate them. Petitions won't make a dent in such reasoning.

Certainly suicide bombings are war crimes, but the suicide bombers, with their Arab apologists and European appeasers, are also UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's constituency. The likelihood of Mr. Annan and his colleagues declaring them war criminals is about the same as a milk marketing board declaring dairy products poisonous. As for the ICC, it would probably indict George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and -- especially -- Ariel Sharon before it would indict Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Islamic Jihad leader Dr. Ramadan Shalah, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Or Fatah and Tanzim (al-Aqsa Brigades) leader Yasser Arafat.

To give the devil his due, one can say two things for Mr. Arafat. First, he's the Houdini of Mideast politics. If he's finally caught in his box, the amazing thing is that he has somehow kept slipping out of it for 44 years. From 1959, when he and other Palestinians founded Fatah in Kuwait, until last week when Israel announced that it had reached the end of its patience with him, Mr. Arafat managed to survive both physically and politically against astounding odds. Never mind Israel or the West, which he terrorized with impunity for nearly half a century; he survived his far more venomous and unscrupulous enemies in the Arab world.

A master of snatching victory, or at least deliverance, from the jaws of defeat, the Palestinian leader escaped the enmity of his rivals, confederates or erstwhile allies, from Syria's Hafiz Assad or Libya's Muammar Gaddafi to Iraq-sponsored mass murderer Abu Nidal. He managed to flee from Jordan in 1971 and from Lebanon in 1982 -- during the latter exodus protected from the angry Lebanese, whose country he helped plunge into civil war, by the very Israelis and U.S. Marines he had reviled and terrorized. A mere 18 months after his Black September fedayeen killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, and about a year after orchestrating the assassination of U.S. ambassador Cleo Noel in Khartoum, Sudan, Mr. Arafat was addressing the United Nations in New York (Nov. 13, 1974), holding a theatrical olive branch in one hand, with his other hand resting on his gun holster.

The holster was empty, by the way, just like the rest of Mr. Arafat's gestures, but it did the trick. He spoke in the UN assembly and the world listened.

The next thing one can say for Mr. Arafat is that he never really denied his fundamental aim. It was the well-meaning liberals of the world, including many in Israel, who so desperately wanted to believe that with the establishment of a Palestinian state peace would come to the Middle East, that they completely closed their eyes to the fact that such a Palestinian state was the last thing Mr. Arafat wanted.

This willful, optimistic blindness wasn't Mr. Arafat's creation. Though he often dissembled for tactical reasons, he never veered far from his view that a state created on the West Bank and Gaza, the territories formerly held by Jordan and Egypt, and occupied by Israel during the 1967 war, would, in his own words, "spell the end of the whole Palestinian cause."

That's because for Mr. Arafat, the Palestinian cause has always meant Israel's destruction. His political dream has been the elimination of a Jewish state in the Middle East, not the creation of a Palestinian one. Peace with Israel would undermine this cause by definition.

Time for the crystal ball. Mr. Arafat will be gone, if not today, then tomorrow. The Jewish state is likely to survive and a Palestinian state is likely to come into being. The irony is that, if and when it does, generations of human suffering, intifada, suicide bombings, refugee existence and the rest will have achieved exactly what the Palestinian people, and the Arab world, could have had in 1948 by simply accepting the partition of Palestine. Such futility.