Arafat calls on Pope for backing in Christmas showdown with Israel

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat tried to enlist the backing of Pope John Paul II in a Christmas showdown with Israel, as he vowed to defy an Israeli ban on him attending midnight mass in Bethlehem.

Israel, which blasted his helicopters in an air raid on Gaza City three weeks ago and then ringed his West Bank headquarters with tanks, said Arafat cannot make his traditional appearance at the Bethlehem service until he arrests the killers of a cabinet minister.

"No one can prevent me from reaching Bethlehem," Arafat told reporters in Ramallah, where he has been under virtual house arrest since the December 3 raids blitzed his Gaza heliport.

The 72-year-old Palestinian leader had filed an official request on Saturday to attend the midnight service in Bethlehem, in the Franciscan church of Saint Catherine next to the Church of the Nativity, which according to Christian tradition was built on the site of Jesus' birthplace,

"It is my duty, and I will see to it that I fulfil it," he said on Voice of Palestine radio. "I will go there even if I have to go on foot."

However, Israel's security cabinet rejected his bid to make the visit he has made every year since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1995.

"The security cabinet made its decision based on the fact that Arafat is not working to dismantle terror organizations and to foil terror attacks against Israel and to arrest and punish terrorists, including the murderers of tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi," a government statement said.

The Israeli media said the vote was close, however, with eight opposed and six in favour of avoiding a public showdown with Arafat, whose international support has began to climb back since hitting rock bottom this month amid a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings.

Israel wants Arafat to arrest the fugitive militants who gunned down Zeevi in Jerusalem on October 17, and also arrest Ahmed Sadat, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian, which claimed the assassination in revenge for Israel's killing of his predecessor.

A senior Palestinian security official told AFP there were intense discussions underway with his Israeli counterparts, who had been informed of Arafat's determination to make the journey despite the security cabinet's decision.

The official said they had told the Israelis Arafat was prepared to drive to the Israeli army checkpoint at Qalandiya, on the northern edge of Jerusalem, for a public face-off if necessary.

And Palestinian cabinet secretary Ahmed Abdul Rahman appealed to Pope John Paul II to intercede to allow Arafat, a Muslim, to attend the mass.

"I call on the Pope to intervene to stop this attack on religious traditions and against the Palestinian people. We condemn this very strongly and the Palestinian people are angry," he said.

However, an official in Sharon's office told AFP that Arafat was refused because he knew where Zeevi's killers were hiding, only a few kilometres from his compound in Ramallah, but Arafat was not making the arrests.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has publicly declared he is against banning Arafat from attending the religious celebrations.

The Pope did nothing compared to well known Soviet and Eastern European dissidents, who by the way are still ignored while idiots keep pointing at the annointed cases of the Pope or Gorbatchev. The hype is blinding us, and our denial of the outrageous calls for peace by the Pope implicitly against Israel are a bad joke.

Kolyma

The secrecy of Kolyma is still being continued. This land, though infamously steeped in human suffering and death, is still cloaked in mystery to the world. Western encyclopedias, documentary film, and journalism have barely flickered the light of a match within miles of this grim place. Traditional Russian secrecy, dating back to the Tsars, became a parallel of western policy towards the Soviet past, heedless of the countless unmarked graves and the bloodstains still to be found on the permafrost. The recent Russian illustrated publication "Magadan," mentioned no slave labor in the development of this Kolyma's capitol and shies away from any information that would discredit the place's genocidal past.

Encyclopedia Britannica merely mentions the name Kolyma as an arctic river with additional insignificant comments about gold mining activities in its Upper basin (p.878.v.5). From its further pages we learn that Magadan's economic development is wholly restricted to mining in several locations. Another note (p.479 v.6) gives only the following information about slave-built sub-arctic city: "good harbor led to its founding in 1933; later a road was built from Magadan crossing the mountains of the Kolyma gold fields. There is a teacher institute in the town." To some men of the West the only "reliable" source on Soviet and Russian matters are Soviets and Russians themselves.

This strange, unjustified and unexplained attitude of the West is best presented by Prof. Wladyslaw J. Ciesielewicz, who concluded his paper "Russian Bloody Gold" with the following comments on the matter of secrecy of the Kolyma's infamous past:

"George Orwell predicted in his "1984" fiction that the victims of the Big Socialist Brother would be eradicated even from the memory of the people to become true non-beings. Today, in 1985 (the same goes for 1994) of the real world, this fate actually befallen to 4-6 million Kolyma victims of Russian Socialism. Due to the censorship in Russia and her colonies (former East European satellites) and in democratic West these people virtually disappeared from the dustbin of history. They are mentioned only in a few books and in some obscure, often unpublished memoirs, written in languages other than English that no one ever reads. But there is no television documentary series, motion pictures, major historical studies or discussions in textbooks on this subject, and no human rights conferences, United Nations resolutions, Congressional hearings, monuments or memorials anywhere to remind us of the Great Kolyma Holocaust."

Kolyma, still one of the main centers of mineral resources in the world, has changed its face since Stalin's era. Maybe the slave labor still exists there, but likely on a smaller scale and limited to common criminals. Yet behind it, there is a long period of human suffering and sacrifice of life, which should not be forgotten. It is the place of human genocide, like Auschwitz, and as such deserves to be documented in the history of the world on equal basis with Nazi centers of human destruction.

How about the 30+ crewmen of our USS Liberty murdered by Israel. I won't link you to the survivor's website for the names because that qualifies as a hatecrime these days.
I am not an expert on the names of the hundreds (or is it thousands now) of Palestinians who have been murdered by the IDF and Israeli intelligence services in the West Bank and Gaza. But, of course, you get the point.

PS- Wasn't Israel founded by the murderers in the Stern Gang and Irgun and Haganah memorialized in street names and museums all over Israel?

Let's take them one at a time.

USS Liberty - I think this happened during a war. It may have been bad judgement by the Israelis, but it hardly qualifies as murder.

I am not an expert - This goes without saying. But you continue to pretend here at FR. You speak of hundreds or thousands but you cannot name one. Ask me to name one or ten Israelies murdered by Arafat's Legions and I would have no trouble.

Stern Gang and Irgun and Haganah - I believe these folks predated the State of Israel. Together they did murder some they felt were enemies, and were sometimes roundly criticized by other Jews; other times maybe they were cheered or quietly supported. What do you think about the Boston Tea Party?

ML/NJ

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