Posted on 09/18/2003 5:56:02 PM PDT by dennisw
| Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat said the Palestinians were serious about their offer to Israel of a new hudna (temporary cease-fire). Responding to the possibility that he would be expelled by Israel, Arafat said he was willing to die as a martyr. Israeli officials quickly dismissed Arafat's statements and called him a "pathological liar." In a series of interviews granted to the Israeli media on Wednesday, Arafat said contacts are already underway with Hamas and Islamic Jihad to achieve a new cease-fire. "The Islamic Jihad is already ready and now we are continuing with the Hamas," Arafat told Yediot Aharonot. "Up to now, the results are positive, there is a positive outlook from their perspective." Earlier this week, Arafat's national security adviser, Jibril Rajoub, said that the Palestinian leadership was prepared to declare a "general cease-fire," if it was mutual with Israel. Rajoub said the cease-fire would require Palestinians to end all violence, and Israelis must "end their attacks, and lift the blockades and closures over the Palestinian population, which has been suffering for the last three years." Arafat confirmed Rajoub's offer of a new truce and told his Israeli interviewers from Channel Two and Channel Ten television, "You're invited." Arafat called on Israel to renew peace negotiations and said the Palestinians were committed to the "road map" peace initiative. "We will bring international observers [to the territories]," Arafat said. "This was agreed in the 'road map.' This way we will stop the bloodshed." When Yediot Aharonot mentioned that implementation of the "road map" also calls explicitly for the dismantlement of terrorist infrastructure, Arafat replied, "This is not infrastructure. This is an opposition that you built, and that you armed. Even [Egyptian] President Mubarak said in an interview that he heard from [the late prime minister Yitzhak] Rabin that he agreed to having Hamas established, and that was a scandalous mistake. How can they be disarmed? Aren't [Israel's] acts of killing creating their response?" Arafat said Israel should be required to dismantle the infrastructure of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). "I know what military infrastructure is. Don't forget, you are talking to an army general!" A senior Fatah official said on Wednesday that Hamas was interested in a hudna if Israel would agree to end its policy of "targeted killing" attempts on the Hamas leadership. Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin delivered the message recently in a meeting with Zakaria al-Agha, an envoy sent by Yasser Arafat, Haaretz reported. Associates of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom dismissed the latest offer by the Palestinians for a cease-fire and said that Israel would not fall again into that kind of trap. Israeli officials said that Arafat is just trying to save himself and project to the world that he is seeking peace, Yediot Aharonot reported. "We have already been in the horror movie of the hudna and we had to count all of our dead. We know this is just part of the festival of Yasser Arafat's fight for survival. Arafat is a pathological liar, and his terrorist strategy hasn't changed for a moment. "We won't repeat the mistake of the first hudna. There will be no gestures of goodwill on Israel's part, and we will not stop security actions or pinpoint operations, unless the Palestinian Authority fulfills its commitments listed in the 'road map' to fight terror itself," the officials said, quoted in Yediot Aharonot. Meanwhile, Arafat's men are surrounding his office with women and children acting as a "human shield" against an Israeli attempt to assassinate or deport him, Israeli security sources said yesterday, according to a Haaretz report. |
Once Arafat was as sly as he was ruthless.
It now seems that age has caught up to the freak.
Now he sounds as stupid as he is ugly....and that's a lot!!
I wonder how Sharon's govt reads the tea leaves on what the likely US reaction would be to an **effective** strike against Hamas, et al.
Yasser actually owned up to running Hamas. I am astounded. Israel, ask us to come in, do joint ops and blow Hamas and Yasser to smithereens, PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE!!! You want them, we want them...ok. Let's get them.
Talk about an army of one. What army is he general of?
Then what are you gonna do?
Then clean out the rest of the jihadis.
Killing an enemy army is what the IDF was MADE for .. and he was just stupid enough to give them carte blanche for any operations against them.
As posters have pointed out correctly, he basically admits to being behind terrorism and that he leads it through the Palestinian Authority terror regime. He and that regime must go.
Another note is that he claims he is a "army" general. Some "army" he has there, one which hides behind civilians, does not wear uniforms, and one who targets Israeli civilians.
And it would appear to open the potential for war crimes charges.
Yes, where are those folks in Brussels who seem to care so much about these kind of things?
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