Posted on 05/03/2002 7:36:05 AM PDT by thatcher
Whisper of betrayal as Arafat is shunned
By Alan Philps in Ramallah
(Filed: 03/05/2002)
YASSER ARAFAT, the Palestinian leader, emerged from a month of captivity to make a victory tour of Ramallah yesterday. But it was shunned by most of the populace, amid whispers of betrayal.
A small crowd of supporters joined him - only enough to fill the viewfinder of a television camera. There was no joy on the streets to celebrate the departure of the Israeli army after five months in the north of the city. Schoolchildren filled the gap left by volunteers.
The cause of the muttering among Palestinians was the agreement under which Mr Arafat ended the siege of his compound in return for handing over six Palestinian militants wanted by Israel into British-supervised custody.
"Arafat paid a very high price for his freedom," said one shopkeeper.
"The Israelis lifted the closure around his compound, but it remains imposed on all the Palestinians. We cannot move anywhere outside of town. It is an incomplete achievement."
According to British officials, the deal gives Mr Arafat his freedom of movement, including foreign travel and return. But the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was quick to give warning that he would not guarantee his return if he stepped outside the Palestinian territories.
Mr Arafat began his victory tour by visiting the Sheikh Zayed hospital and praying over a mass grave in the car park where 16 people who died during the Israeli re-occupation are buried.
He moved on to the Education Ministry to see the damage done by the army. All the computer hard disks have been removed, as well as the files and records of the past seven years' exam results.
The Palestinian leader was in an aggressive mood to deflect questions about the deal he worked out to end the siege and what he would do next.
When reporters rushed into his compound after the last Israeli tank left, he ordered them: "Go away and investigate what is happening in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem."
Ten peace activists - including Georgina Reeves, a Briton who lives in the Palestinian territories and is organiser of the International Solidarity Movement - slipped into the besieged church after colleagues created a diversion to distract Israeli soldiers.
The activists took food into the church, where about 180 Palestinian gunmen, as well as priests, monks, nuns and other civilians have been trapped for a month.
To Palestinians Mr Arafat is guilty of taking part in a deal under which six men who are seen as heroes and freedom-fighters are imprisoned in a Palestinian jail under the eyes of British and American monitors.
The attraction from Israel's point of view is that a United Nations investigation into the Israeli army assault on the Jenin refugee camp will be quietly forgotten. After Israel raised objections to the fact-finding team its 20 members, who have been waiting in Geneva for almost a week, were going home yesterday.
Abla Saadat, wife of Ahmed Saadat, the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who is detained in the Jericho prison, said the ditching of the Jenin inquiry was a betrayal. "It is not just me who thinks so. Ninety per cent of the Palestinians, even some people around Arafat think so," she told reporters.
Mrs Saadat put into words the despair of the Palestinians after 19 months of violence. For all Mr Arafat's promises of victory, the Israeli iron fist has left city centres in ruins, broken the lives of thousands and ripped the guts out of the Palestinian administration, just like the Education Ministry computers.
"For 50 years Israel never brought us to despair. But seven years of Palestinian rule has brought us to the brink," she said. "Did we achieve a victory? Did we end the occupation? Only from around Arafat's compound."
The same negative sentiments were aired for hours on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite news channel, though speakers were asked not to use the word "treachery".
The message is clear: Mr Arafat was a hero under siege. He began to lose this status as soon as the tanks withdrew from his compound.
Television interviews by candle light are Mr Arafat's forte. But slogans will not rebuild the damage to Palestinian homes, offices and infrastructure - estimated at £240 million over the past month - and there are ever louder demands for a change in leadership style.
Palestinians still talk of an intifada, or uprising, but it has dawned on them that times have changed.
Just as there was a spiritual dimension to Hiler's Nazis and WWII. A lesson not learned by Europeans.
Atheists ignore much at their own peril.
I have read the books on this (Spear of Destiny/Morning of the Magicians/ and more...) and am well acquainted with the literature. This is the secret history of WW2. Simply put, Hitler was black magician. Same for Stalin and Mao.
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
Miss Marple/howlin is this another example of our stealth president in action behind the scenes with his good people working with zero publicity.
Let's also hope that our own leaders are not sacrificing some innocent men and women secretly hoping the PLO will attack and kill them. That would be just what might be needed to get everyone in line to support the Iraqi invasion.
Speculation has always been there that Wilson sacrificed the Lusitania passengers and Roosevelt sacrified Pearl Harbor knowing it would take such events to get Americans mad enough to agree to an all out war.
This has been the Islamist technique ever since the beginning. Every country in the Middle East west of Iraq and north of Arabia was Christian when the Jihads started, along with North Africa. The method of increasing their population by various means, including forcing Christian women to become concubines, and to convert to Islam, together with executing anyone who becomes Christian and any Christian who evangelizes to a Moslem would work here, like it worked in Egypt, Syria, and the rest of the former Eastern Roman Empire.
Yup. I saw that. I think the (live) body was draped in the Palestanian flag. It was funny to see the 'body' get up and run...and then when the precieved threat was gone, 'it' went back and laid down under the flag. LOL. This was filmed from an Israeli Predator type aircraft.
As soon as the Palestian people get organized , likely under someone other than Arafat, the violence will pick up again!
Probably more upset that they can't play DUKE NUKEM.
I believe that Mohammed (PBUH; sorry, I just had some apple peel get stuck between my teeth) belongs in the same category.
Also L. Ron Hubbard, founder of $cientology, who learned his craft from Satanist Aleister Crowley. Many people do not take them seriously, but Hubbard's goal was world domination, likewise his successors.
What color is the sun that your planet is under?
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