Arafat: I'll dismantle Hamas when Israel agrees to dismantle IDF

israel insider ^ | By Ellis Shuman September 18, 2003 | By Ellis Shuman September 18, 2003

[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.

[blackbart.223]

"There is not enough warrior in Arafat to construct a pimple on a real General's ass, and his Army is so cowardly they fight only from behind women and children and attack only women and children..."

Bump to the top.

[Dec31,1999]

Nice picture of people praying to stone idols! I wonder what the Bible says about that. :)

[Mr. Mulliner]

How do you get the idea that the wailing wall is a stone idol?

[FierceDraka]

"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."

LIES!

Arafart is starting to lose it, methinks. He's backed into a corner (literally), on the verge of total military defeat, and the Israeli leadership is openly discussing either his expulsion or assassination/execution (best case scenario IMO).

Personally, I'd like to have his head mounted on a plaque on my living room wall.

[LibertarianInExile]

Gawd, not me. Can you imagine the bill for producing the world's largest pair of glass eyes? And trying to tan that seedy-lookin' face of his would probably cost a fortune, too, just on the square footage of that schnoz alone...

I've often wondered what he keeps under that headdress, though. I bet there's a big pink bow daintily tied around his old gray hair.

Hiding behind women and children. What a cowardly liar.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

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!"

"Army general." Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

In precisely the same way that Rachel Corrie was a parking brake. :)

[Light Speed]

"Maybe Israel should just dismantle Arafat."

Israel should send his wife from France back to him in Ramallah...

That would probably kill him : )

[Robert_Paulson2]

This is a frank admission that Hamas is a hostile military power, one that is controlled by him.

---

exactly right.
he used to say he had no control over hamas... now he admits, they are infact his MILITARY FORCE.... doing his suicide bombings at HIS behest...

buy bye arfy?

[JasonC]

Use our money, the EU's money, EU diplomats, our journalists, our state department? He already is. The scandal is much wider than you seem to acknowledge. Maybe a third of a very conservative US administration is on Israeli's side in this. Nobody else is. But then the whole point of having a state was supposed to be, that the approval of others in a hostile world would not be necessary for self defense.

[EternalVigilance]

Better watch it there, Robert. Agreeing with me twice in one night might give you nighmares. ;-)

[JasonC]

OK, somebody help me out here. I think we all know what should happen. What I am wondering is why it hasn't or isn't supposed to, from the other side. I hear, but do not know, that the US is against executing the man. I don't hear why. I know the Europeans and press and I expect many Dems pretend it is supposedly unthinkable. Here is my problem. I'd like to know why they think that.

What basis is even alleged for immunity for Arafat?

Would it excuse Hitler?

Yes yes, I know Arafat is not Hitler and I am not engaging in a reductio ad Hitler. I am wondering whether any maxim proposed as protective of Arafat exists, that when generalized would leave a clear distinction between him and AH.

Is Arafat supposed to be immune because in the past he signed agreements brokered by leaders of major democratic powers? Um, so did AH.

Is Arafat supposed to be immune because he is the constitutional or elected leader of his people? Um, so was AH.

IS Arafat supposed to be immune because he continues to offer peace, in words? Um, AH was offering peace in words to the UK right through the Blitz.

Is Arafat supposed to be immune because heads of state are simply off limits, even in a war? Um, UK intelligence tried to kill AH half a dozen times, and supplied the bomb that almost got him in 1944.

Is Arafat supposed to be immune because the Palestinian people have had a raw deal? Um, Versailles, reparations, inflation, and depression didn't exactly amount to living in high cotton. Nobody pretends that excuses anything.

He has been a terror master for his entire adult life. He has run attempts to overthrow governments that put him up, from Jordan to Lebanon. Everywhere he has gone, death and destruction have followed him. His policy of murdering innocents while mugging for the cameras hasn't changed in 30 years. His hands are covered in innocent blood, some of it American. In the last 3 years he has shown himself if anything more savage than previously, in response to being offered more than ever before. He just dumped the "last chance" PM that W allowed him to get the territories off the front page last year, to allow Iraq to go ahead without that distraction.

What on green earth is supposed to make it some high principle that he be untouchable now? That other Arabs don't see anything wrong with murdering innocents as long as they are Israeli? Surely that is something we are fighting against and seek to correct, not something it is our policy to kowtow to - isn't it?

The only thing I can see, besides simple leftist solidarity with any murdering tyrant, is people thinking it "sounds mean" to be in favor of waging war against someone who wages war.

In Lawrence of Arabia there is a scene where a feud threatens to erupt within the Arab army before the fight for Aqaba. A man has shot dead a member of another tribe. The head of the offended tribe explains his position on the matter rather succinctly.

"He killed. He dies."

[Robert_Paulson2]

True, but when you are right...
you are still right...
whether or not,
I have nightmares at night.

---

We agree when we can... and fight like the devil when we cannot.
mostly fight like the devil...
:-)