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.
Yup! MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN...
Sorry, I do not care what the opinions are of a supporter of those who applauded the destruction of the WTC. 'Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists'. In any case, you are factually incorrect, the ancient Christian state of Lebanon has been extinguished within the last generation.
Yes, some of them may be starting to see the light. The PLO is a brutal terrorist organization, not trustworthy as a partner for peace, or as a fair, legitimate government for the Palestinian people.
As they say... be careful what you wish for.
According to an account on the internet Hubbard liked to break woman's souls. After drugging them up and while having sex with them and doing evil things.
Laurant Sex and Rockets:
The Occult World of Jack Parsons
This book used to on the internet in it's entirety where I read it few years back....Now I just see reviews of it. I forget if Hubbard met Crowley in the flesh
Parsons/Hubbard/Crowley http://www.users.wineasy.se/noname/occult.htm
"In my father's private circle," Ron Jr. explains, "there were lots of mistresses. When I was younger, I participated in private orgies with him and three or four other women. His theory was that one has to open or crack a woman's soul in order for the satanic power to pour through it and into him. It got kind of far out, culminating in a variety of sex acts. Dad also had an incredibly violent temper. He was into S&M and would beat his mistresses and shoot them full of drugs."
Doubtful, because in the next breath, our almost illuminated one complains that the "occupation" isn't over.
She and her almost illuminated friends are looking for a dictator who can oppress the Palestinians, WHILE ALSO destroying Israel.
Lebanon was not always regarded as part of Syria, since there had never been an independent Arab state of Syria until after WWII. As far as the 'secret' Islamic plans, there are none. The promises of the Islamists to eliminate the dhimmi are quite open. As far as the fact that there is still a shrinking Christian minority in Lebanon, that is true, but heck, the Islamists only assassinated their way into control about thirty years ago, give them time, they will finish off all of your relatives soon enough.
Everyone but the d@mned left wing media knows the gunmen are holding everyone else hostage in there...everyone but the idiot peaceniks, that is. The press must be PAYING these peacenuts to do this stuff...
From the International Desk
Published 5/3/2002 12:42 PM
TEL AVIV, Israel, May 3 (UPI) -- Israeli officials Friday ordered 13 U.S. citizens to leave the country after they broke through army lines to the besieged Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
The deportees have been in Israel for several weeks and are associated with the Internal Solidarity Movement that advocates non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
About 10 members of the group entered the church Thursday to be with a few dozen armed militants -- some of whom Israel wants for murder -- clergy and more than 100 Palestinians who fled there when Israel occupied Bethlehem a month ago.
The Israelis want the militants to choose between exile and trial in Israeli courts and said the others are free to go once it establishes their identities. The Palestinians say the militants should be moved to Gaza.
Soldiers arrested 13 members of the group in Manger Square outside the church. Authorities locked up the eight men detained while the five women were released after completing deportation procedures, a spokesman for the Israeli police in the West Bank said.
All 13 are to be deported and the process began Friday afternoon, police said.
Israel has refused entry to some people it considered trouble makers and has expelled others who broke into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah while he was surrounded. Copyright © 2002 United Press Internationa
It is the leading story in World Net Daily, which is, I am sure you know, edited by a Christian of Arab descent.
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