French towns considering naming streets or squares after Arafat

Several French municipalities governed by communist and left-wing majorities are considering naming a street or a square after Yasser Arafat.

The French police intelligence service, Renseignements Generaux, reportedly warned the Ministry of Interior that such initiatives might trigger heated polemics and tensions between Jews and Muslims, especially neighborhoods ridden by ethnic violence.

In several suburban cities near Paris and Lyons governed by communist mayors, large Muslim and Jewish populations live side by side.

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Tourist review of Israel (Times of London)

by Julie Burchill

IT’S THE laziest cliché in the travel-writing book to describe a place as a country of contrasts. Usually this means that — hold the front page! — a country’s got both a beach and a city.

And sometimes these weak words become weasel words, as when used about Brazil, the country with the largest gap between richest and poorest in the world. In this case, “a country of contrasts” comes down to the fact that some people pick their teeth with golden gewgaws while round the corner, families literally live on, and from, rubbish heaps.

So I hope that you’ll forgive me when I use this creaking phrase about Israel — but how much more of a contrast could there be than spending a morning crying one’s heart out at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, and an afternoon sitting by the pool of a five-star hotel on the Dead Sea, sunbathing with neither fear nor sunscreen. Because, get this, the altitude is the lowest in the world, meaning that all those pesky little UA and UV rays that tend to cause skin cancer are zapped by all those extra layers of ozone.

The next day you’re in Tel Aviv, reeling at the sheer barefaced beauty of the Bauhaus buildings. And in Israel you can do all this without once feeling like a shallow, surface-skimming tourist, because this country sees the darkness of the past and the sunshine of the present as two sides of the same coin. “Yes, we’ve suffered — all the more reason to enjoy,” is the overall impression you come away with.

Of course, you can get a combo of history, culture and cocktails in many countries. But they aren’t the size of Wales. Try and “do” Italy in a week and you’ll end up bewitched, but also bothered and bewildered, which is why most visitors stay in one region; the same goes for France.

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Click here to find out more!
But in seven nights, my friend Nadia and I stayed in Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Eilat and Tel Aviv. And though we came back determined to return ASAP, and well aware that there was so much more to see, in no way did we feel exhausted or short-changed.

I must stress at this point that Nadia and I are card-carrying philistines as far as holidays go; before Israel, our idea of fun in the sun was to roast from nine till five before staggering out in unsuitable shoes to dance unbecomingly to Euro-pop and swill blue cocktails.

Yet in Israel, we found ourselves crying at buildings, exclaiming over paintings and cooing over ruins.

It started in Jerusalem. Go out on to the balcony of David’s Citadel hotel and — well, “It’s not Kansas any more, is it, Toto?” Nor is it the usual five-star view of sand, sea and ennui — instead, where normally a manicured lawn would lead down to a becalmed coast, are the real, actual walls of the Old City, complete with Jaffa Gate. Go to sleep, wake up and try to rub the dream from your eyes — and there it is again, in the broad daylight that begins in Israel at 5am sharp.

After breakfast, inside the living city that just happens to be straight out of the Bible, you get your first experience of Israeli decency. According to received wisdom, these are a para-fascist people crushing all before them; how odd, then, that Old Jerusalem is a model of pluralism, with its Christian and Muslim quarters, churches and mosques gleaming free.

Beauty Without Cruelty: it was the name of an English cosmetics company, the first not to test their wares on animals, but it seems so much to describe the attitude of Jewish culture towards others. If only the opposite were true; next morning, bright and early, Nadia and I were taken to Yad Vashem — the huge and, it must be said, beautiful memorial to the genocide of the European Jews in the first half of the 20th century.

I won’t try to describe it here. Enough to say that these empty-headed Englishers arrived at 9am and didn’t feel able to leave until 1pm. Our unimpeachable Israeli guide, the beautiful and brilliant Ms Ora Schlesinger, spoke to us softly after about three hours: “Julie, Nadia. I hate to have to say this. But we must go soon.”

We were uncontrollable in our grief; every time we thought we could move on, one of us would utter a cry of anguish and dart back into the darkness of the halls. When we eventually emerged, though, we felt calm and ready for anything. Come on, Israel — let’s do it! We were driven to the Dead Sea resort of Ein Bokek; I fooled around in the water, and it was just the most fun you could have outside zero gravity. Bobbing about, I felt a cheap metaphor coming on; against all odds, Israel stays buoyant. Nadia asked me if I didn’t want to go with her to have mud thrown at me in a luxury spa. “No, thanks,” I answered smartly, “I can get that at home!” Then next day, an hour’s drive to the Vegas of the Promised Land, the Cannes of Canaan — Eilat.

The Sheraton Herod’s Palace and Spa hotel in Eilat had a very amusing triptych of art in the rooms. I don’t know if they were meant to be sarky — probably not, as Israelis, unlike English, tend to be too straightforward for a sneaky thing like sarcasm — but my nasty mind took them that way. The first two show obviously Arab figures sitting around in a barren landscape, smoking hookahs, arguing, generally dossing about and wasting their lives.

In the third, the glorious white edifice of the hotel has fully risen from the parched landscape, and one robed figure is looking up at it. You can’t see his face, but you just know what he’s thinking: “Them Jews! — they’ve done it again!” Meanwhile Nadia was downstairs having something called a hot stone treatment at the Herod Vitalis spa. She said it was the best thing she’d ever experienced physically without having to send her clothes to the dry-cleaners afterwards.

I’ve stayed at five-star hotels from Mauritius to Torquay, but this one really made me wish that ratings went up to six. (Oh, and I’ve stayed at the allegedly “seven-star” Burj al Arab in Dubai too.) There are lots of lies told about Israel — some of them deliberate, others are mere misunderstandings.

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“It’s far away” — no, it’s four hours by plane. “It’s dangerous” — I’ve felt more physically threatened on Brighton sea front on a school night. “It’s expensive” — a pair of this season’s Dolce & Gabanna sunglasses, for £27 rather than their usual £100-plus, would beg to differ.

If you want to believe them, go ahead, ignore Israel, and keep trotting back to the same old destinations you’ve visted a score of times. But you’ll be missing out on culture that makes Venice look like Milton Keynes, and weather that makes Tenerife look like Leeds — we were there in October, the first month of Israel’s brief winter, and in north and south the weather stayed in the eighties (high twenties), with never a cloudy day.

And you’ll be missing a people whose sheer beauty makes Catherine Zeta-Jones and Johnny Depp look like Dawn French and Stephen Fry. Oh, and you’ll be missing out on supporting, in some small way, a dazzling, good-hearted country surrounded by barren theocracies who’d rather it had never existed.

“You’re English, aren’t you? You’re a good people!” an Israeli said to me; despite the great wrongs done by this country to theirs leading up to the birth of their country, these people choose to remember the kindness over the cruelty, whenever possible.

“I would like to welcome British people to Israel — to Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Tel Aviv and all our beautiful country,” said Israeli tourism minister, Gideon Ezra, recently.

While from any other politician it might have been dismissed as mere patter, with Israel it comes from the heart. Well, they’ve got me — after my honeymoon in Antigua next month, I can’t imagine ever wanting to go anywhere else.

The Jews say that there is no heaven — but on this occasion, I would beg to differ with this splendid people.

Because from what I’ve seen, albeit in the short space of a week, there is a heaven. And its name is Israel.

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$300m Motorola Israel contract with US Postal Service approved

$300m Motorola Israel contract with US Postal Service approved
Motorola Israel develops data products for the global market.
Globes’ correspondent 8 Nov 04 17:20
Motorola Israel reported today that it would supply 300,000 mobile data collection devices to the US Postal Service. The three-year contract is worth almost $300 million, including financing for Motorola Israel and setting up necessary infrastructure in the US.

The devices will be used at most postal service points in the US as a mobile scanner, which can read advanced barcodes. This will make it possible to track mail at all delivery stages, from the moment it is sent until it reaches its destination. Over 800 million pieces of mail were scanned in the US in 2003.

Motorola Israel is Motorola’s (NYSE: MOT) global development center for data products designed for the global market. Motorola Israel will develop the devices for the contract, and manufacture them in the Motorola Israel plant in Arad.

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The Palestinian Women Terrorists (IDF)

Since the beginning of the Intifada, the phenomenon of using women as suicide bombers and executing terrorist attacks has grown. The terrorist groups, the ones who implement the attacks search to exploit the embodied advantages of the participation of women in order to carry out terrorist attacks mainly within the Green Line.

This is the supposition that women are seen as tender, delicate and innocent, and as such stimulates less suspicion than a man. In all the incidents which women have been involved in terrorist attacks there has been a need for camouflage, enabling them to be assimilated in Israeli streets.

Female terrorists attempt to present themselves as Westerners by wearing non-conservative dress such as short skirts, maternity dress and modern haircuts.

As of today, 8 women have carried out suicide terrorist attacks against Israeli targets. As a result of these suicide terrorist attacks 39 Israelis have been killed and approximately 300 maimed. Since September 2000, more than 50 women have been arrested by security forces who were to carry out suicide terrorist attacks or aid in their execution. In October 2004 only, 14 women have been arrested ready to perpetuate a suicide terrorist attack.

Palestinian Women Involved in Terrorist Activities

In most cases, these women represent two spectrums of Palestinian Arab society. Among them are literate women, with professions as well as young and popular and non popular women who lack higher education and a profession. The participation of women involved in terror activities is divided into different levels.

The highlight of this phenomenon of female suicide bombers and those who execute suicide bombings is that their actions have been thwarted before they managed to carry out their attacks. Additionally, women have been used for terror activities such as in planning and implementing the attacks.

The phenomenon of Palestinian Arab women involved in terror activities has existed for many years. One need only look into the past. One prominent example was an active senior terrorist in the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, Ataf Alian, who planned to execute a suicide bombing by detonating a car bomb in Jerusalem in 1987. Ataf Ailan was imprisoned in Israel for 10 years and was released in 1997.

Another prominent example is Lyla Chalad, a senior terrorist of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who was involved in the high jacking of an Israeli airplane in 1969.

The rest of the article shows details on many of the female Palestinian terrorists over the past few years. -EoZ

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Arafat was Bin Laden's inspiration (Dershowitz)

By ALAN DERSHOWITZ
Yasser Arafat was the godfather of international terrorism who dashed his people's hope for statehood, stole billions of dollars intended for the relief of their suffering, and indoctrinated their children with so much hatred that they willingly turned themselves into human bombs.

He did manage to leapfrog the Palestinian cause over equally or more deserving causes – such as Tibetan freedom, Kurdish independence, and Basque statehood – by wielding three immoral weapons: first, international terrorism on a scale previously unknown to the world; second, an alliance with oil-rich states willing to extort support for his cause by energy blackmail; and third, exploitation of international anti-Semitism against the Jewish state.

Arafat was personally responsible for the murders of thousands of innocent Israelis, hundreds of innocent Americans, and countless others. Like other ethnically motivated butchers before him, he delighted in killing Jewish children, as he did in several well-planned attacks on Israeli schools and nurseries. He also personally ordered the murder of hundreds of his own people who disagreed with him or collaborated with Israel. Never a man to tolerate dissent, he employed bullets rather than arguments to respond to his critics.

Arafat was the inspiration for Osama bin Laden, because he proved to his eager student that terrorism works and that terrorists can be praised and rewarded by a craven world, as Arafat was by so many for so long.

Arafat was not one of those leaders who could, a la Nelson Mandela, make the transition from terrorist to peacemaker. He never learned how to take "yes" for an answer and he never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

According to former president Bill Clinton and his chief adviser, Dennis Ross, Arafat was personally responsible for the failure of Camp David and Taba to produce statehood for the Palestinians in 2000-2001. Instead of now celebrating their third anniversary of statehood, the Palestinians have suffered thousands of casualties and years of self-inflicted pain, while inflicting death and suffering on the Israelis as well.

Arafat's legacy is one of bloodshed and war, yet tears are being shed over his peaceful passing, not only by Palestinians but by many Europeans as well. Had Arafat accepted the offer of statehood, his body could have been buried in the part of Jerusalem that would have been the capital of the Palestinian state instead of in the rubble of Ramallah.

The world made a terrible mistake by not treating Arafat as a criminal.

He should have been indicted for ordering the murder of American diplomats, Israeli athletes, and international travelers instead of being praised for his "courage." It takes no courage to kill the helpless and much courage to risk one's own life in pursuit of peace. It was such courage that Arafat lacked.

The Nobel Peace Prize was cheapened by being awarded to this hater of peace. The Vatican was tarnished by its frequent welcoming of a man who violated every teaching of the Church. The United Nations was trivialized by its lionization of this coward. And terrorism was encouraged by the rewards Arafat received for his murders.

In the end, Arafat was a lucky man, lucky because his perceived enemy was the Jewish state. Had his enemy been a Christian or Muslim or communist state, he would never have received a pass for his mass murder. He understood the world's lingering anti-Semitism better than most, and he exploited it for all it was worth. Those grandchildren of Europeans who supported or welcomed Hitler and who willingly allowed their lingering bigotry to be exploited were complicit in his evil.

Eventually, the Palestinians will have their state, when they finally reject the legacy of their failed leader Yasser Arafat. When Palestinian statehood is declared, Arafat will posthumously receive much of the credit. He will not deserve it. A more farsighted leader would have done more for his people, less for his own pocketbook, and better for the world than did Hitler's failed successor and bin Laden's successful predecessor – Yasser Arafat.

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Suha's payoff: $22 million a year

Yasser Arafat's widow, Suha, is expected to receive a sum of $22 million a year out of the Palestinian Authority budget, according to the Italian newspaper Corriere De La Serra.

The paper said Suha reached an agreement about the money during a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO's newly elected chairman, who visited while she was staying next to her husband's bed in the French military hospital outside Paris.

It said Abbas personally promised Suha that she would receive $22 million a year to cover her expenses in Paris. The paper noted that in July Arafat transferred to his wife $11 million to cover her living costs for the first six months of the year.

Abbas and the Palestinian leadership were forced to strike the deal with Suha after she refused to allow them to visit her husband in hospital.

The Palestinian leaders reached the conclusion that it would be better to make a deal with her in order to solve the crisis surrounding Arafat's possessions and secret bank accounts.

According to Palestinian officials, the money that Suha is expected to receive will come from secret accounts held by Arafat and his cronies in various countries. They estimated that at least $4 billion were being held in these secret accounts.

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Apparently Dahlan was the political target when 3 Americans were murdered in Gaza

High-ranking Palestinian Authority officials admit that the terrorist attack last year on the American convoy at the Beit Lahiya intersection was meant to clip the wings of the man in Gaza who is closest to the United States

Last year's terrorist attack in the Gaza Strip, which claimed the lives of three American employees of a security firm who were guarding diplomats from the U.S. Embassy in Israel, sparked much anger within the higher echelons of the American administration. The diplomats were part of a 'peace delegation,' as a State Department spokesman put it, which went to Gaza to offer aid to Palestinians.
As the convoy passed through the Beit Lahiya intersection on October 15, 2003, at around 11:00 A.M., moving from the Erez crossing toward the city of Gaza along the main road, it was welcomed by an explosive charge weighing several dozen kilograms.

The diplomats were in the first and third bullet-proof cars in the convoy - which had diplomatic license plates - and escaped unharmed. The Palestinian policemen who were escorting the convoy were also hurt. Only the security guards who were in the second car - which was blown apart in the explosion - were killed.

The attack on the American convoy was out of the ordinary, because dozens of delegations operate in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on behalf of European and American aid organizations, and they almost never come to harm. The foreign organizations aid Palestinians, and like foreign media crews, they enjoy a quasi-immunity in the territories.

Palestinian spokesmen, and mainly Yasser Arafat, hastened to condemn the attack on the American convoy. 'It was not directed against the Americans - but against the Palestinian people,' said Arafat.

The Palestinian Authority and teams from the U.S. defense establishment immediately launched an investigation to determine who wanted to attack the American convoy, if the perpetrators' intent had really been to attack an Israeli military vehicle, and if the American security men were killed by mistake.

The first conclusion was that it was no mistake. The road where the attack took place is not used by the Israel Defense Forces. It is an exclusively Palestinian transportation route, along which hundreds of Arab vehicles pass each day. The people who set off the explosive charge knew exactly whom they were attacking. They evidently stood by the roadside, spotted the cars with the diplomatic plates and aimed for them.

Sources in the Palestinian defense establishment tried to make a case against this assumption and repeatedly raised the hypothesis that the attackers intended to hit an Israeli target. But the Americans rebuffed the attempt out of hand. They demanded a thorough investigation by the Palestinian Authority that would shed light on the circumstances of the incident and would also lead to a trial in which the guilty parties would be brought to justice.

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ScrappleFace: Coroner: Arafat Died of Tilex Poisoning

(2004-11-11) -- The coroner for the Palestinian Authority today announced that former Chairman Yassir Arafat died from 'acute Tilex poisoning,' and blamed the CIA and Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.

'Infidel agents infiltrated Chairman Arafat's personal quarters and sprayed his bathtub with Tilex, a deadly toxin to certain lifeforms,' said an unnamed spokesman for the coroner. 'We believe the bathtub was poisoned up to two years ago, but Chairman Arafat's exposure came only recently, due to his personal hygiene schedule.'

The coroner said his report 'ensures Mr. Arafat's status as a martyr, which helps to overcome his shameful legacy as the man who signed a peace accord with Israel.'

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ScrappleFace: Bush Applauds Arafat's 'New Attitude'

(2004-11-12) -- U.S. President George Bush today praised Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat for 'assuming a new attitude,' according to a White House spokesman.

'The president believes that Chairman Arafat's new attitude is one that bodes well for peace in the Middle East,' said spokesman Scott McClellan. 'Arafat's rhetoric has cooled in recent days.'

U.S. negotiators reportedly expect the Palestinian leader to put up less resistance to reasonable proposals, thanks to 'a new posture that is more grounded, stable, consistent.'

'Chairman Arafat seems to be taking an in-depth look at the land he has fought to defend,' Mr. McClellan said, 'and yet he's looking up to a promising future, where the grass is greener. President Bush has long believed that it's your attitude that determines your altitude, and Mr. Arafat has become a great illustration of that.'

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Excellent, annotated biography of the master terrorist scumbag

Yassir Arafat, 1929-2004

HonestReporting's biography, with links to important sources

EARLY LIFE

It's ironic that the man who personified the Palestinian movement was neither born in the region it claims, nor conforms to his own organization's definition of Palestinian identity. Yassir Arafat, whose real name is Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, was born in August 1929 in Cairo, son of an Egyptian textile merchant. He was sent to Jerusalem as a small child after his mother died, then returned to Egypt via Gaza.

Throughout his career, Arafat's Egyptian background was a political impediment and source of personal embarrassment. One biographer notes that upon first meeting him in 1967, 'West Bankers did not like his Egyptian accent and ways and found them alien,' and to the very end Arafat employed an aide to translate his Egyptian dialect into Palestinian Arabic for conversing with his West Bank and Gaza subjects.

As a young man, Arafat took no part in the formative experience of the Palestinian movement ― the 1948 Arab-Israeli war ― but he would nonetheless claim refugee status throughout his life: 'I am a refugee,' he cried out in a 1969 interview, 'Do you know what it means to be a refugee? I am a poor and helpless man. I have nothing, for I was expelled and dispossessed of my homeland.' (Arafat's congenital lying would continue for decades.)

FATAH AND THE PLO

In the mid-1950s, Arafat joined the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, then rose to the head of the Palestine Student Union at the University of Cairo. In the late 1950s Arafat moved to Kuwait, where he co-founded Fatah ('Palestine National Liberation Movement' ― an acronym meaning 'conquest'), the faction that would later gain control over the entire Palestinian movement. Fatah's motley ranks of Islamists, communists and pan-Arabists expanded via brute violence. 'People aren't attracted to speeches, but rather to bullets,' Arafat quipped at this stage. (At right: Fatah logo of rifles and grenades over Israel)

Fatah began military-style training in Syria and Algeria in 1964, and the following year tried unsuccessfully to blow up a major Israeli water pump. Fatah's stated goal was the obliteration of the State of Israel, and well before the 1967 war would supply a pretext, Arafat's organization repeatedly attacked Israeli buses, homes, villages and rail lines.

This violence against Israeli civilians was a pillar of the Palestinian National Covenant (the foundational charter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization - PLO), which states that 'the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence' and that 'armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine and is therefore a strategy and not a tactic.' (Despite repeated Palestinian commitments in the late 1990s to annul these sections of the covenant, it was never officially changed.)

Arafat's public profile got a boost in 1968, when the IDF raided a Fatah terrorist stronghold in the Jordanian village of al-Karameh. The uniformed, keffiyah-clad Arafat took this opportunity to project himself as a fearless Arab leader who, despite the post-Six Day War gloom, dared to confront the Israelis. The image stuck, and Fatah's numbers swelled with new recruits.

Arafat and Fatah consolidated power through bribery, extortion and murder, and at the Palestinian National Congress in Cairo in February 1969, Arafat was appointed head of the PLO ― a position he would never relinquish.

JORDAN, LEBANON AND TUNISIA

By the late 1960s, heavily-armed, Arafat-led Palestinians had formed a terrorist 'state within a state' in Jordan, not only attacking Israeli civilian targets, but also seizing control of Jordanian infrastructure.

The tension reached a height during late 1970, when Jordan's King Hussein cracked down on the Palestinian factions. During this bloody conflict, known as 'Black September', Palestinians hijacked four Western airliners and blew one up on a Cairo runway (pictured at right), to both embarrass the Egyptians and Jordanians and, in their words, 'teach the Americans a lesson for their long-standing support of Israel.' With the broad publicity this generated, Arafat had hit the world stage.

When King Hussein drove Arafat's faction out of his Jordanian kingdom (causing thousands of civilian deaths), they relocated in Lebanon. As in Jordan, Arafat soon triggered a bloody civil war in his previously stable host country. Simultaneously, the PLO launched intermittent attacks on Israeli towns from southern Lebanese positions.

Yassir Arafat then brought the high-profile terrorist act to western soil. In Sept. 1972, Fatah-backed terrorists kidnapped and murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic games. And in 1973, Arafat ordered his operatives in the Khartoum, Sudan office of Fatah to abduct and murder US Ambassador Cleo Noel and two other diplomats. (In 2004, the FBI finally opened an official investigation against Arafat for the Khartoum murders.)

The wanton violence fueled Arafat's political goals, as his presence on the world stage grew: In 1974, he became the first representative of a nongovernmental organization to address a plenary session of the UN General Assembly (pictured at left) In the speech, with a gun holster strapped to his hip, Arafat compared himself to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Arab heads of states declared the PLO the sole legitimate representative of all Palestinians, the PLO was granted full membership in the Arab League in 1976, and by 1980 was fully recognized by European nations.

In 1978-82, the IDF invaded Lebanon to root out PLO groups that had continually terrorized the northern Israeli populace. The U.S. brokered a cease-fire deal in which Arafat and the PLO were allowed to leave Lebanon; Arafat and the PLO leadership eventually settled in Tunisia, which remained his center of operations until 1993.

During the 1980s, Arafat received financial assistance from Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, which allowed him to rebuild the battered PLO. This was particularly useful during the first Palestinian intifada in 1987 ― Arafat took control of the violence from afar, and it was mainly due to Fatah forces in the West Bank that the anti-Israel terror and civil unrest could be maintained. Arafat would then become nearly the only world leader to support Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf War. (Saddam would later repay this loyalty by sending $25,000 checks to families of Palestinian suicide bombers.)

THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

In the early 1990s, the U.S. led Israel and the PLO to negotiations that spawned the 1993 Oslo Accords, an agreement that called for the implementation of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over a five-year period. The following year Arafat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin.

In 1994, Arafat moved his headquarters to the West Bank and Gaza to run the Palestinian Authority, an entity created by the Oslo Accords. Arafat brought with him from Tunisia an aging PLO leadership that would bolster his ongoing monopoly over all Palestinian funds, power and authority. Elections in 1996 extended Arafat's control over the PA, but under the Oslo agreement, the term of that candidacy ended in 1999. Arafat never allowed new elections to take place.

While Israel went about implementing its side of the Oslo agreements ― removing troops from nearly all Palestinian areas, recognizing the PA, and educating for peace ― the PA utterly failed to live up to its commitment to renounce and uproot anti-Israel terrorism. Instead, unprecedented incitement from Arafat's official PA media and school textbooks, and active and passive PA support for terrorist groups led to a string of suicide bombings in the mid-1990s that killed scores of Israeli civilians. In October, 1996, at the height of the Oslo years, Arafat cried out to a Bethlehem crowd, 'We know only one word - jihad! Jihad, jihad, jihad! Whoever does not like it can drink from the Dead Sea or from the Sea of Gaza.' [For more on the failure of Oslo, see HonestReporting's documentary film, Relentless.]

In July 2000, U.S. president Bill Clinton attempted to keep the Oslo Accords viable by convening a summit at Camp David between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. There, Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian state in Gaza and 92% of the West Bank, and a capital in East Jerusalem ― the most generous offer ever from an Israeli government. Yassir Arafat rejected the offer and ended negotiations without a counteroffer. As American envoy Dennis Ross concluded, 'Arafat could not accept Camp David... because when the conflict ends, the cause that defines Arafat also ends.' [See also this interview with Ross on Oslo.]

Immediately following this breakdown, the PA media machine under Arafat's control ramped up the war rhetoric, and preparations were made for riots that were unleashed following Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount. The Arafat-supported 'al Aqsa intifada' would continue for four years. This unprecedented wave of anti-Israel terrorism, which would result in over 1,000 Israeli deaths, was marked by over 120 Palestinian suicide bombers and the growth of an Islamic martyrdom cult.

This stage of violence revealed that Arafat and the PA had never abandoned their longstanding plans to liquidate the Jewish state. Arafat had told an Arab audience in Stockholm in 1996, 'We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion... We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.' Likewise, Arafat explained to a South African crowd in 1994 that the Oslo agreement was merely a tactical ruse in the larger battle to destroy the Jewish state ― a modern version of the Muslim prophet Mohammed's trickery against the ancient tribe of Quraysh. Arafat's colleague Faisal al-Husseini was even more explicit, describing the Oslo process as a 'Trojan Horse' designed to promote the strategic goal of 'Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea' ― that is, a Palestine in place of Israel.

TERRORIST TO THE END

The final phase in Arafat's life-long commitment to organized terror was channeled through the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a Fatah group that was responsible for many of the most deadly attacks against Israeli civilians between 2000-2004. Though many media outlets described a mere 'loose affiliation' between Arafat and this terrorist group, the evidence clearly indicated a direct financial and organizational bond between the two:

▪ In November, 2003 a BBC investigation found that up to $50,000 a month was funneled by

An ammunition bill for the terrorist Al Aqsa Brigade, signed by Yassir Arafat - see larger version

Fatah, with Arafat's approval, directly to the Al Aqsa Brigades, for the purpose of organizing bombings, snipings and ambushes against Israeli civilians.

▪ Documents captured by the IDF in 2002 indicated Fatah's 'systematic, institutionalized and ongoing financing' of the Al Aqsa Brigades. (See Arafat's signature on the weapons budget, and this full report from Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.)

▪ The leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades in Tulkarm told USA Today on March 14, 2002: 'The truth is, we are Fatah, but we didn't operate under the name of Fatah...We are the armed wing of the organization. We receive our instructions from Fatah. Our commander is Yasser Arafat himself.'

[For more on the Arafat-Al Aqsa connection, click here.]

In addition, Arafat granted free rein to the radical Islamic terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad to perpetrate dozens of horrific acts of civilian murder between 2000-2004. [At left: Arafat with Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, 2003]

DELEGITIMIZATION

In January 2002, the Israeli Navy seized a Gaza-bound, PA-owned freighter ― the Karine A ― that was loaded with more than fifty tons of Iranian ammunition and weapons, including dozens of surface-to-surface Katyusha rockets. (See more on the Karine A.)

In June 2002, upon recognizing Arafat's ongoing financing and abetting of terrorism, U.S. President Bush called for Arafat's removal from power. Progress toward peace required, according to Bush, 'a new and different Palestinian leadership...not compromised by terror.' Release of a U.S.-backed 'road map' for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was therefore delayed until such a new Palestinian leader emerged. On its part, the Israeli government chose to isolate Arafat in his Ramallah compound, the 'Muqata', where he would remain from early 2002 until his final days, and where his burial is expected to occur.

In April 2003, hours after Mahmoud Abbas assumed the role of Palestinian prime minister, the official road map was released and diplomatic progress began. But Arafat consistently undercut the authority of Abbas, leading to Abbas' resignation and the halting of the road map peace process.

CORRUPTION, AUTOCRACY, JIHAD

Over the course of his 'revolutionary' career, Arafat siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars of international aid money intended to reach the Palestinian people.

Estimates of the degree of Arafat's wealth differ, but are all staggering: In 2003, Forbes magazine listed Arafat in its annual list of the wealthiest 'Kings, Queens and Despots,' with a fortune of 'at least $300 million.' Israeli and US officials estimate Arafat's personal holdings between $1-3 billion.

And while the average Palestinian barely subsisted, Arafat's wife Suha (at left) in Paris received $100,000 each month from PA sources as reported on CBS' 60 Minutes. That CBS report also noted that Arafat maintained secret investments in a Ramallah-based Coca Cola plant, a Tunisian cellphone company, and venture capital funds in the U.S. and the Cayman Islands.

Arafat also used foreign aid funds to pay off cronies who bolstered his autocracy: An International Monetary Fund report indicated that upwards of 8% ($135 million) of the PA's annual budget was handed out by Arafat 'at his sole discretion.' And Arafat's select PA policemen, far from keeping the peace, were repeatedly among the suicide bombers and snipers.

Money was just one method of strengthening Arafat's power apparatus. Critics of his PA government were routinely imprisoned, tortured or beaten. One example: In 1999, Muawiya Al-Masri, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, described Arafat's corruption to a Jordanian newspaper. For this, he was attacked by a gang of masked men and shot three times. Al-Masri survived the ordeal and described Arafat's grip on PA power: 'There is no institutional process. There is only one institution ― the Presidency, which has no law and order and is based on bribing top officials.'

From 2000-2004, Arafat permitted Muslim imams to incite unprecedented anti-Israel and anti-American violence from their mosques and through official PA media. Arafat's Religious Affairs Ministry employed preachers who regularly called for children to 'martyr themselves', and PA television glamorized the act of suicide bombing.

Under Arafat, the Palestinian Authority school textbooks denied Israel's very existence, and jihad was presented to Palestinian children as an admirable course of action. The Jewish people, meanwhile, was represented to schoolchildren as a tricky, greedy and barbarous nation.

Freedom of the press was virtually non-existent during Arafat's reign in Gaza, Jericho and Ramallah ― if it didn't speak favorably of Arafat, it didn't get printed in the PA-controlled media. Moreover, the PA enacted a systematic policy of intimidation of foreign journalists. One case among many: When an AP cameraman captured footage of Palestinian street celebrations following the 9/11 attacks, he was kidnapped, brought to a PA security office, and Arafat's cabinet secretary threatened that the PA 'cannot guarantee [his] life' if the footage was broadcast.

Yet beyond the terrorism, extortion, embezzlement and intimidation lies Arafat's most unfortunate ongoing impact: The inculcation of murderous values in an entire generation of Palestinians, who have been educated ― under Arafat's direction ― to continue the fight of jihad against Israel, rather than compromise to end the decades-long conflict.

How many generations will it take to undo Arafat's dark legacy?

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Times of London Opinion Piece: Choose your own cliché

Fresh start. Road map. Political engagement. Choose your own cliché
Michael Gove
SOME OF my best friends are clichés. Anyone who writes regularly will often find that a familiar word that comes readily to hand is better than beating about the bush. But clichés are like alcohol. While it’s eminently forgivable to indulge occasionally, as a way of getting through the day, excessive use clouds the judgment.

And when it comes to peering through a glass darkly, no issue is so clouded by an overreliance on the crutch of clichés as the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Two historic events in this past week have recast the nature of that conflict. But even though President Bush’s re-election, and the closing of the Arafat era, demand a fresh engagement with the issue, the air is still thick with the fug of stale cliché.

There is a widespread sense that a new opportunity exists to provide the Palestinian people and the Israelis with fresh hope for the future. But that fresh hope is compromised by the tired assumptions with which it is accompanied. As Tony Blair prepares to meet President Bush this week there is near-unanimity from European commentators and politicians about what should be done.

The President should be told to re-engage with a peace process that has faltered, more than anything, because of his culpable neglect. He must show greater impartiality, rather than favouring, as he has, if only by inaction, the Israeli Government.

The Israelis, for their part, must recognise the folly of seeking to use military means to protect themselves from terror. And only through progress between Israel and the Palestinians can the wider problems of the region be solved.

All of these clichéd assumptions: the belief that America is to blame for neglecting to engage; the conviction that the President must display neutrality; the judgment that Ariel Sharon’s current tactics are folly; and the idea that the peace process is the principal solution for the region’s woes are almost totally wrong. These assumptions have underpinned the policies that were followed for 30 years in the Middle East, and they have been responsible for our current misery. The repetition of each of these clichés now brings to mind another, with politicians who refuse to learn from history condemned to repeat it.

The first wrong-headed assumption is embodied in the demand that Bush “re-engage” with the Middle East peace process, as though conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians was like a squabble between children, a dispute due primarily to a failure on the part of the figure in authority to assert himself. This error springs from a misplaced faith that major conflicts can be resolved if only outside figures apply themselves to brokering negotiations with all the energy at their disposal. The truth about peace processes is that outside brokers can achieve something only if the parties to the conflict want out. And that wasn’t the case with Arafat.

Few presidents could have tried harder to engage with the Middle East peace process than Bill Clinton, but he knew where the blame lay for its demise. When Yassir Arafat sought to praise Clinton for the American leader’s efforts at the end of his presidency, Bill would have none of it. “I’ve been a failure,” he told the Palestinian leader, “and it’s thanks to you.” Peace talks at Camp David, and Taba, ran into the sand because Arafat chose not to accept what had been negotiated but preferred to see what more could be extracted through the violence of the second intifada.

If Arafat had been genuinely intent on peace then his energies would have gone into making his nascent state work. Like Michael Collins, the Irish terrorist godfather turned statesman, Arafat should have accepted borders that were less than ideal, so that a start might be made on nurturing a democracy, and then set about dealing with those rejectionists on his own side who threatened the peace.

But Arafat preferred the poisoned romance of staying a terrorist leader to the hard nobility of building a nation.

That left Israel’s leaders with no option but to protect their own democracy as best they could. And that was a moral course which any leader following an ethical foreign policy should have respected. George Bush did.

He could not remain impartial between a terrorist entity prosecuting a campaign that targeted innocents and a democracy defending itself, any more than a policeman can be even-handed between burglar and householder.

Bush has been critical of some of Israel’s actions, for no state can act wisely in every circumstance. But the tired insistence that the Sharon Government be told, on every occasion, to mend its ways, ignores the emerging truth that the Israeli Prime Minister has achieved signal successes in difficult times. Ariel Sharon’s policy of erecting a security barrier along Israel’s frontier and targeting the leaders of the fundamentalist terror group Hamas has resulted in a dramatic fall in the number of terrorist incidents on Israeli soil.

As well as protecting his citizens in the short term, he has also given the Palestinians the opportunity to recognise that their violence has been counter-productive. The intifada has failed, and as its author lies comatose in a Paris hospital; they must look for hope elsewhere.

Indeed, foreign statesmen who wish to see the people of the Middle East enjoy a better future should broaden their gaze beyond this one conflict to recognise what is truly at the heart of the region’s malaise. Arafat was not the only Arab leader to blame his people’s problems on the Jews, to prefer the romance of the liberation struggle to the hard work of democratic modernisation, and to line his own pockets while his citizens scrabbled for survival. The root cause of violence, poverty and division in the Middle East is not a failure to solve the peace process. The failure of the peace process stems from the continuing addiction of so many of the Arab world’s leaders to fomenting violence, presiding over poverty and indulging in the politics of division.

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Real Timeline of Arafat's Terror Career

AP and many newspapers have published timelines of Arafat's life that almost completely ignore his terrorist acts. Here is a much more accurate rendering of the life of this Nobel Peace Prize winner:

Key Events in Yasir Arafat's Terrorist Career

– Aug 4, 1929: Arafat born in Cairo. Muhammad Abdel Rahman Abdel Rauf al-Qudwa al-Husseini is fifth child of prosperous merchant, Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini.

– 1933: Arafat's mother dies. He and his infant brother are sent to live with uncle in Jerusalem.

– Late 1950's: Arafat co-founds Fatah, the “Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine.”

– Jan. 1, 1965: Fatah fails in its first attempted attack within Israel — the bombing of the National Water Carrier.

– July 5, 1965: A Fatah cell plants explosives at Mitzpe Massua, near Beit Guvrin; and on the railroad tracks to Jerusalem near Kafr Battir.

– 1965-1967: Numerous Fatah bomb attacks target Israeli villages, water pipes, railroads. Homes are destroyed and Israelis are killed.

– July 1968: Fatah joins and becomes the dominant member of the PLO, an umbrella organization of Palestinian terrorist groups.

– Feb. 4, 1969: Arafat is appointed Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO

– Feb. 21, 1970: SwissAir flight 330, bound for Tel Aviv, is bombed in mid-flight by PFLP, a PLO member group. 47 people are killed.

– May 8, 1970: PLO terrorists attack an Israeli schoolbus with bazooka fire, killing nine pupils and three teachers from Moshav Avivim

– Sept. 6, 1970: TWA, Pan-Am, and BOAC airplanes are hijacked by PLO terrorists.

– September 1970: Jordanian forces battle the PLO terrorist organization, driving its members out of Jordan after the group's violent activity threatens to destabilize the kingdom. The terrorists flee to Lebanon. This period in PLO history is called “Black September.”

– May 1972: PFLP, part of the PLO, dispatches members of the Japanese Red Army to attack Lod Airport in Tel Aviv, killing 27 people.

– Sept. 5, 1972: Munich Massacre —11 Israeli athletes are murdered at the Munich Olympics by a group calling themselves “Black September,”said to be an arm of Fatah, operating under Arafat's direct command.

– March 1, 1973: Palestinian terrorists take over Saudi embassy in Khartoum. The next day, two Americans –including the United States' ambassador to Sudan, Cleo Noel – and a Belgian were shot and killed. James J. Welsh, an analyst for the National Security Agency from 1969 through 1974, charged Arafat with direct complicity in these murders.

– April 11, 1974: 11 people are killed by Palestinian terrorists who attack apartment building in Kiryat Shmona.

– May 15, 1974: PLO terrorists infiltrating from Lebanon hold children hostage in Ma'alot school. 26 people, 21 of them children, are killed.

– June 9, 1974: Palestinian National Council adopts “Phased Plan,” which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state on any territory evacuated by Israel, to be used as a base of operations for destroying the whole of Israel. The PLO reaffirms its rejection of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for a “just and lasting peace” and the “right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

– November 1974: PLO takes responsibility for the PDFLP's Beit She'an murders in which 4 Israelis are killed.

– Nov. 13, 1974: Arafat, wearing a gun, addresses the U.N. General Assembly.

– March 1975: Members of Fatah attack the Tel Aviv seafront and take hostages in the Savoy hotel. Three soldiers, three civilians and seven terrorists are killed.

– March 1978: Coastal Road Massacre —Fatah terrorists take over a bus on the Haifa-Tel Aviv highway and kill 21 Israelis.

– 1982: Having created a terrorist mini-state in Lebanon destabilizing that nation, PLO is expelled as a result of Israel's response to incessant PLO missile attacks against northern Israeli communities. Arafat relocates to Tunis.

– Oct. 7, 1985: Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro is hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. Wheelchair-bound elderly man, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot and thrown overboard. Intelligence reports note that instructions originated from Arafat's headquarters in Tunis.

– Dec. 12, 1988: Arafat claims to accept Israel's right to exist.

– September 1993: Arafat shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Rabin, inaugurating the Oslo Accords. Arafat pledges to stop incitement and terror, and to foster co-existence with Israel, but fails to comply. Throughout the years of negotiations, aside from passing, token efforts, Arafat does nothing to stop Hamas, PFLP, and Islamic Jihad from carrying out thousands of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. With Arafat's encouragement and financial support, groups directly under Arafat's command, such as the Tanzim and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, also carry out terror attacks.

– Oct. 21, 1996: Speaking at a rally near Bethlehem, Arafat said "We know only one word - jihad. jihad, jihad, jihad. Whoever does not like it can drink from the Dead Sea or from the Sea of Gaza." (Yediot Ahronot, October 23, 1996)

– April 16, 1998: In a statement published in the official Palestinian Authority newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, Arafat is quoted: "O my dear ones on the occupied lands, relatives and friends throughout Palestine and the diaspora, my colleagues in struggle and in arms, my colleagues in struggle and in jihad...Intensify the revolution and the blessed intifada...We must burn the ground under the feet of the invaders."

– July 2000: Arafat rejects peace settlement offered by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, which would have led to a Palestinian state.

– September 2000: New "intifada" is launched. Arafat continues to incite, support and fund terrorism.

– Jan. 3, 2002: Israelis intercept the Karine-A, a ship loaded with 50 tons of mortars, rocket launchers, anti-tank mines and other weapons intended for the Palestinian war against the Israelis. The captain admits he was under the command of the Palestinian Authority.

– September 2003: IMF report titled "Economic Performance and Reforms under Conflict Conditions," states that Arafat has diverted $900 million of public PA funds into his own accounts from 1995 - 2000.

Below are some of the attacks since Sept 2000 perpetrated by groups under Arafat's command:

– May 29, 2001: Gilad Zar, an Itamar resident, was shot dead in a terrorist ambush by Fatah Tanzim.

– May 29, 2001: Sara Blaustein, 53, and Esther Alvan, 20, of Efrat, were killed in a drive-by shooting south of Jerusalem. The Fatah Tanzim claimed responsibility for the attack.

– June 18, 2001: Doron Zisserman, 38, shot and killed in his car by Fatah sniper fire.

– Aug 26, 2001: Dov Rosman, 58, killed in a shooting attack by Fatah terrorist.

– Sept 6, 2001: Erez Merhavi, 23, killed in a Fatah Tanzim ambush shooting near Hadera while driving to a wedding.

– Sept 20, 2001: Sarit Amrani, 26, killed by Fatah terrorist snipers as she was traveling in a car with her husband and 3 children.

– Oct 4, 2001: 3 killed, 13 wounded, when a Fatah terrorist, dressed as an Israeli paratrooper, opened fire on Israeli civilians waiting at the central bus station in Afula.

– Nov 27, 2001 - 2 killed 50 injured when two Palestinian terrorists opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles on a crowd of people near the central bus station in Afula. Fatah and the Islamic Jihad claimed joint responsibility.

– Nov 29, 2001: 3 killed and 9 wounded in a suicide bombing on an Egged 823 bus en route from Nazereth to Tel Aviv near the city of Hadera. The Islamic Jihad and Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack.

– Dec 12, 2001 - 11 killed and 30 wounded when three terrorists attacked a bus and several passenger cars with a roadside bomb, anti-tank grenades, and light arms fire near the entrance to Emmanuel in Samaria . Both Fatah and Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

– Jan 15, 2002: Avi Boaz, 71, an American citizen, was kidnapped at a PA security checkpoint in Beit Jala. His bullet-riddled body was found in a car near Bethlehem. The Fatah's Al-Aksa Brigade claimed responsibility for the murder.

– Jan 15, 2002: Yoela Chen, 45, was shot dead by an Al Aqsa Brigade terrorist

– Jan 17, 2002: 6 killed, 35 wounded when a Fatah terrorist burst into a bat mitzva reception in a banquet hall in Hadera opening fire with an M-16 assault rifle.

– Jan 22, 2002: 2 killed, 40 injured when a Fatah terrorist opened fire with an M-16 assault rifle near a bus stop in downtown Jerusalem.

– Jan. 27, 2002: One person was killed and more than 150 were wounded by a female Fatah suicide bomber in the center of Jerusalem.

– Feb 6, 2002 - A mother and her 11 year old daughter were murdered in their home by a Palestinian terrorist disguised in an IDF uniform. Both Fatah and Hamas claimed responsibility.

– Feb 18, 2002 : - Ahuva Amergi, 30, was killed and a 60-year old man was injured when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire on her car. Maj. Mor Elraz, 25, and St.-Sgt. Amir Mansouri, 21, who came to their assistance, were killed while trying to intercept the terrorist. The terrorist was killed when the explosives he was carrying were detonated. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

– Feb 22, 2002: Valery Ahmir, 59, was killed by terrorists in a Fatah drive-by shooting north of Jerusalem as he returned home from work.

– Feb 25, 2002: Avraham Fish, 65, and Aharon Gorov, 46, were killed in a Fatah terrorist shooting attack south of Bethlehem. Fish's daughter, 9 months pregnant, was seriously injured but delivered a baby girl.

– Feb 25, 2002: Police officer 1st Sgt. Galit Arbiv, 21, died after being fatally shot, when a Fatah terrorist opened fire at a bus stop in the Neve Ya'akov residential neighbhorhood in northern Jerusalem. Eight others were injured.

– Feb 27, 2002: Gad Rejwan, 34, of Jerusalem, was shot and killed by one of his Palestinian employees in a factory north of Jerusalem. Two Fatah groups issued a joint statement taking responsibility for the murder.

– March 2, 2002: A suicide bombing by Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem killed 11 people and injured more than 50.

– Mar 5, 2002: 3 were killed and over 30 people were wounded in Tel-Aviv when a Fatah terrorist opened fire on two adjacent restaurants shortly after 2:00 AM.

– Mar 5, 2002: Devorah Friedman, 45, of Efrat, was killed and her husband injured in a Fatah shooting attack on the Bethlehem bypass "tunnel road", south of Jerusalem.

– Mar 9, 2002: Avia Malka, 9 months, and Israel Yihye, 27, were killed and about 50 people were injured when two Fatah terrorists opened fire and threw grenades at cars and pedestrians in the coastal city of Netanya on Saturday evening, close to the city's boardwalk and hotels.

–March 21, 2002: An Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade suicide bomber exploded himself in a crowd of shoppers in Jerusalem, killing 3 and injuring 86.

– March 29, 2002: Two killed and 28 injured when a female Fatah suicide bomber blew herself up in a Jerusalem supermarket.

– March 30, 2002: One killed and 30 injured in an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

– April 12, 2002: Six killed and 104 wounded when a female Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade suicide bomber blew herself up at a bus stop on Jaffa road at the entrance to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market.

– May 27, 2002: Ruth Peled, 56, of Herzliya and her infant granddaughter, aged 14 months, were killed and 37 people were injured when a Fatah suicide bomber detonated himself near an ice cream parlor outside a shopping mall in Petah Tikva.

– May 28, 2002 - Albert Maloul, 50, of Jerusalem, was killed when shots were fired by Fatah terrorists at the car in which he was traveling south on the Ramallah bypass road.

– May 28, 2002 - Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorists killed Netanel Riachi, 17, Gilad Stiglitz, 14, and Avraham Siton, 17, three yeshiva high school students playing basketball.

– June 19, 2002: Seven people were killed and 37 injured when a Fatah suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded bus stop and hitchhiking post in the French Hill neighborhood of Jerusalem.

– June 20, 2002: Rachel Shabo, 40, and three of her sons - Neria, 16, Zvika, 12, and Avishai, 5 - as well as a neighbor, Yosef Twito, 31, who came to their aid, were murdered when a terrorist entered their home in Itamar, south of Nablus, and opened fire. Two other children were injured, as well as two soldiers. The PFLP and the Fatah Al Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

– July 25, 2002: Rabbi Elimelech Shapira, 43, was killed in a Fatah shooting attack near the West Bank community of Alei Zahav.

– July 26, 2002: St.-Sgt. Elazar Lebovitch, 21, of Hebron; Rabbi Yosef Dikstein, 45, of Psagot, his wife Hannah, 42, and their 9-year-old son Shuv'el Zion were killed in a Fatah Al Aqsa Brigade shooting attack south of Hebron. Two other of their children were injured. – July 30, 2002: Shlomo Odesser, 60, and his brother Mordechai, 52, both of Tapuach in Samaria, were shot and killed when their truck came under Fatah fire in the West Bank village of Jama'in.

– Aug 4, 2002: 2 killed and 17 wounded when a Fatah terrorist opened fire with a pistol near the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem's Old City.

– Aug 5, 2002: Avi Wolanski (29) and his wife Avital (27), of Eli, were killed and one of their children, aged 3, was injured when terrorists opened fire on their car as they were traveling on the Ramallah-Nablus road in Samaria. The Martyrs of the Palestinian Popular Army, a splinter group associated with Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack.

– Aug 10, 2002: Yafit Herenstein, 31, of Moshav Mechora in the Jordan Valley, was killed and her husband, Arno, seriously wounded when a Fatah terrorist infiltrated the moshav and opened fire outside their home.

– Sept 18, 2002: Yosef Ajami, 36, was killed when Fatah terrorists opened fire on his car near Mevo Dotan, north of Jenin in the West Bank.

– Oct 29, 2002: Three people, including 2 fourteen year olds, were shot to death by a Fatah terrorist.

-- Nov 10, 2002: Revital Ohayon, 34, and her two sons, Matan, 5, and Noam, 4, as well as Yitzhak Dori, 44 - all of Kibbutz Metzer - and Tirza Damari, 42, were killed when a Fatah terrorist infiltrated the kibbutz, located east of Hadera near the Green Line, and opened fire.

– Nov 28, 2002: 5 killed and 40 wounded when two Fatah terrorists opened fire and threw grenades at the Likud polling station in Beit She'an, near the central bus station, where party members were casting their votes in the Likud primary.

– Apr 24, 2003 - 1 was killed and 13 were wounded in a suicide bombing outside the train station in Kfar Sava. Groups related to the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the PFLP clamied joint responsibility for the attack.

– May 5, 2003 - Gideon Lichterman, 27, was killed and two other passengers, his six-year-old daughter Moriah and a reserve soldier, were seriously wounded when Fatah terrorists fired shots at their vehicle in Samaria.

– May 19, 2003: 3 were killed and 70 were wounded in a suicide bombing at the entrance to the Amakim Mall in Afula. The Islamic Jihad and the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades both claimed responsibility for the attack.

– Aug 29, 2003: Shalom Har-Melekh, 25, was killed in a Fatah shooting attack while driving northeast of Ramallah. His wife, Limor, who was seven months pregnant, sustained moderate injuries, and gave birth to a baby girl by Caesarean section.

– Jan 29, 2004: 11 people were killed and over 50 wounded in a suicide bombing of an Egged bus no. 19 at the corner of Gaza and Arlozorov streets in Jerusalem. Both the Fatah-related Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

– Mar 14, 2004: 10 were killed and 16 wounded in a double suicide bombing at Ashdod Port. Hamas and Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack.

– May 2, 2004: Tali Hatuel, 34, and her daughters - Hila, 11, Hadar, 9, Roni, 7, and Merav, 2 - of Katif in the Gaza Strip were killed when two Palestinian terrorists fired on an Israeli car at the entrance to the Gaza Strip settlement bloc of Gush Katif. Fatah and Islamic Jihad claimed joint responsibility for the attack.

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The Palestinian's Own Baghdad Bob - Saeb Erekat

Erekat added that he doubts this is the case, adding that “if Mother Teresa led the Palestinian People, Israel in her stubbornness and lack of desire to reach a true peace would turn her into a terrorist as well".

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Another terrorist is now rotting in hell

Just this one will have European leaders at his funeral.

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The Myth of a Two-State Solution

AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE W. BUSH AND TONY BLAIR

Dear President Bush and Prime Minister Blair,

The nuclear threat from Iran and North Korea becomes ever more imminent, genocide goes unchecked in the Sudan, and the war against Islamic militancy rages across the globe. In these circumstances to suggest that the Israel-Palestine conflict is the most pressing issue of the day, and its solution (by way of creating a Palestinian State) the highest of all priorities to be addressed, is - if you will forgive my presumption in saying so - a preposterous proposition.

At this critical stage, the time has come for an honest and realistic assessment of the problems facing the democratic nations of the world.

For your own sakes as well as for ours free yourself from the shackles of conventional thinking. The Arabists of the State Department and the Foreign Office live in a bygone era, and old Europe is cynical and corrupt. Don’t heed their advice. You will neither gain Europe’s favour nor buy off the hostility of international Islamic militants (and the Arab states that openly or tacitly support them) by sacrificing Israel on the altar of appeasement. Nor will you be doing the Palestinians a favour by prematurely thrusting the forms of statehood upon a people in no way ready for its democratic substance. Abandon the shibboleth that somehow a Palestinian State at this time will contribute to a more stable and democratic Middle East, or a safer world.

Israel is a democratic state anxious to live in peace and harmony with its neighbours. We are prepared for peace, but not for suicide. The vision of two states living side-by-side in peace depends upon the establishment of a Palestinian leadership prepared to replace a despotic and corrupt oligarchy with true democracy, one willing to live in peace, capable of controlling the terrorists in its midst, one determined to convince its people that the Jewish State of Israel is legitimate and here to stay. There is no prospect of such a leadership emerging in the immediate future, and re-educating the Palestinian people for peace and amity, after decades of incitement to hate and violence, is the task of at least a generation. Therefore, a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict is, for this generation at least, not a realistic vision but an illusion, a pipe-dream.

The departure of Arafat does not alter this conclusion, at least not in the foreseeable future. Putting one’s faith in veteran Arafat loyalists like Abu Mazen and Abu Ala, in ruthless strong-men like Mohammed Dahlan or the convicted multiple-murderer Marwan Barghouti, is like entrusting post-Hitler Germany to Goering or Eichman. There may be some moderates in Palestine, but there is no moderate leadership waiting or able to take over. Transition from despotism to democracy is not an instant process. Post-war Germany and Japan, after the elimination of the entire tainted leadership, and under the tutelage and supervision of the Allied Forces, were guided and educated towards responsible democracy over a long period. The transition in the Soviet Union from Stalin to perestroika and glasnost took decades. For both Israel and the Palestinians – and eventually for the free world - ‘Statehood Now’ will prove to be as dangerous and costly a myth as ‘Peace Now’ has been!

. Premature statehood is not the solution of the Middle East conflict, but the creation of a new problem of infinitely more perilous dimensions.

The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years, before a generation arose that was fit to enter the Promised Land. The Jews of Palestine developed the instruments of democratic governance for thirty years under the Mandate, before the Zionist enterprise matured and evolved into the State of Israel. The Palestinians need at least as long a period of tutelage and maturation before the concept of a democratic viable and independent Palestinian State can become a reality. To dream of a state may be a starting point, but to achieve statehood demands a learning process, a process of self-assessment and re-education, a willingness to take moral and practical responsibility, a transformation from violence to constructive work, and a long period of reconciliation, both internal and external.

Independence must be deserved, prepared for, earned.

Too much time and energy has been wasted, and too much blood has been spilt, in the fruitless pursuit of a viable two-state solution. This fixation has been at the cost of searching for more creative and realistic alternatives. For all our sakes turn your thoughts and efforts in new and more constructive directions. If you will it, they are there to be found.

Sincerely yours,
Professor Gilbert Herbert, Haifa, 7 November 2004
Technion, Haifa

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