Let's go to "In a ruined country" by David Samuels to find out how much Arafat loved peace:
When it became clear that Ariel Sharon, then the Israel opposition leader, would win the Israeli elections in February of 2001, Nofal went to Arafat and urged him to call off the intifada. "There were a lot of people sitting around, including Saeb Erekat and Yasir Abd Rabbo," Nofal remembers.
"I told him, 'Abu Ammar, I need the security to speak openly.' The Bedouin say, 'Give me the security to speak freely." He said to me, 'Speak.'
"I said to him, 'Abu Ammar, Barak will lose, Sharon is coming, the military work is not our field. It is Sharon's field. He needs it. So please, Abu Ammar, let us go out from this field, and leave Sharon as the hayawan muftaris [the flesh-eating animal] to play alone."'
"Those who were sitting around Arafat, they said, 'Ah, you are afraid of Sharon!'" Nofal recalls, shaking his head. "'Sharon will not stay in power. Barak stayed eighteen months. Sharon will stay nine. And if we conquer him, this is the last bullet in the Israeli gun!' They said, 'So, khalas [enough already]—why are you afraid?' I said, 'I am afraid that he will destroy us in these nine months, and I doubt that he will fail.' At that time Arafat kept silent. He was listening. But most of those around opposed what I said."
Not only does this show that Arafat was committed to violence to get what he wanted, it shows that he suffered from no "character assassination." Arafat knew that he had brought down Barak when Barak no longer suited him (just as he had brought down Netanyahu) and that he was immune from criticism in some quarters. He knew his power. He was confident that he could muster enough international support to challenge Sharon successfully. He suffered from an altogether too good reputation despite seven years of perfidy; doing nothing to fulfill his obligations.
Yasser Abed Rabbo is an extremist. He is a terror apologist. He deserves no place to spew his garbage. And yet here he is in the pages of Israel's most "prestigious" newspaper. Won't Ha'aretz ever learn?
(Ha'aretz is called the New York Times of Isreal by its admirers. It probably should be called the same by its detractors too!)
Technorati Tags: Israel, PLO, Yasser Arafat.
UPDATE: Did I say that Ha'aretz is the New York Times of Israel? Prophetic, I tell you. Pathetic too.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.
Rabbo rousing
Do you see the parallel?:
Yes sir. Yasser was a man of peace.
Let's go to "In a ruined country" by David Samuels to find out how much Arafat loved peace:
Not only does this show that Arafat was committed to violence to get what he wanted, it shows that he suffered from no "character assassination." Arafat knew that he had brought down Barak when Barak no longer suited him (just as he had brought down Netanyahu) and that he was immune from criticism in some quarters. He knew his power. He was confident that he could muster enough international support to challenge Sharon successfully. He suffered from an altogether too good reputation despite seven years of perfidy; doing nothing to fulfill his obligations.
Yasser Abed Rabbo is an extremist. He is a terror apologist. He deserves no place to spew his garbage. And yet here he is in the pages of Israel's most "prestigious" newspaper. Won't Ha'aretz ever learn?
(Ha'aretz is called the New York Times of Isreal by its admirers. It probably should be called the same by its detractors too!)
Technorati Tags: Israel, PLO, Yasser Arafat.
UPDATE: Did I say that Ha'aretz is the New York Times of Israel? Prophetic, I tell you. Pathetic too.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.
Posted by David Gerstman at November 11, 2005 11:23 AM