Great article by Prof Hansen (War against Islamo Facism)

[storm1977 0]

July 22, 2005, 8:16 a.m.


And Then They Came After Us
We’re at war. How about acting like it?

First the terrorists of the Middle East went after the Israelis. From 1967 we witnessed 40 years of bombers, child murdering, airline hijacking, suicide murdering, and gratuitous shooting. We in the West usually cried crocodile tears, and then came up with all sorts of reasons to allow such Middle Eastern killers a pass.


Yasser Arafat, replete with holster and rants at the U.N., had become a “moderate” and was thus free to steal millions of his good-behavior money. If Hamas got European cash, it would become reasonable, ostracize its “military wing,” and cease its lynching and vigilantism.

When some tried to explain that Wars 1-3 (1947, 1956, 1967) had nothing to do with the West Bank, such bothersome details fell on deaf ears.

When it was pointed out that Germans were not blowing up Poles to get back lost parts of East Prussia nor were Tibetans sending suicide bombers into Chinese cities to recover their country, such analogies were caricatured.

When the call for a “Right of Return” was making the rounds, few cared to listen that over a half-million forgotten Jews had been cleansed from Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, and lost billions in property.

When the U.N. and the EU talked about “refugee camps,” none asked why for a half-century the Arab world could not build decent housing for its victimized brethren, or why 1 million Arabs voted in Israel, but not one freely in any Arab country.

The security fence became “The Wall,” and evoked slurs that it was analogous to barriers in Korea or Berlin that more often kept people in than out. Few wondered why Arabs who wished to destroy Israel would mind not being able to live or visit Israel.

In any case, anti-Semitism, oil, fear of terrorism — all that and more fooled us into believing that Israel’s problems were confined to Israel. So we ended up with a utopian Europe favoring a pre-modern, terrorist-run, Palestinian thugocracy over the liberal democracy in Israel. The Jews, it was thought, stirred up a hornet’s nest, and so let them get stung on their own.

We in the United States preened that we were the “honest broker.” After the Camp David accords we tried to be an intermediary to both sides, ignoring that one party had created a liberal and democratic society, while the other remained under the thrall of a tribal gang.

Billions of dollars poured into frontline states like Jordan and Egypt. Arafat himself got tens of millions, though none of it ever seemed to show up in good housing, roads, or power plants for his people. The terror continued, enhanced rather than arrested, by Western largess and Israeli concessions.

Then the Islamists declared war on the United States. A quarter century of mass murdering of Americans followed in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, East Africa, the first effort to topple the World Trade Center, and the attack on the USS Cole.

We gave billions to Jordan, the Palestinians, and the Egyptians. Afghanistan was saved from the Soviets through U.S. aid. Kuwait was restored after Saddam’s annexation, and the holocaust of Bosnians and Kosovars halted by the American Air Force. Americans welcomed thousands of Arabs to our shores and allowed hundreds of madrassas and mosques to preach zealotry, anti-Semitism, and jihad without much scrutiny.

Then came September 11 and the almost instant canonization of bin Laden.

Suddenly, the prior cheap shots at Israel under siege weren’t so cheap. It proved easy to castigate Israelis who went into Jenin, but not so when we needed to do the same in Fallujah.

It was easy to slander the Israelis’ scrutiny of Arabs in their midst, but then suddenly a few residents in our own country were found to be engaging in bomb making, taking up jihadist pilgrimages to Afghanistan, and mapping out terrorist operations.

Apparently, the hatred of radical Islam was not just predicated on the “occupation” of the West Bank. Instead it involved the pretexts of Americans protecting Saudi Arabia from another Iraqi attack, the United Nations boycott of Iraq, the removal of the Taliban and Saddam, and always as well as the Crusades and the Reconquista.

But Europe was supposedly different. Unlike the United States, it was correct on the Middle East, and disarmed after the Cold War. Indeed, the European Union was pacifistic, socialist, and guilt-ridden about former colonialism.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims were left alone in unassimilated European ghettoes and allowed to preach or promulgate any particular hatred of the day they wished. Conspire to kill a Salmon Rushdie, talk of liquidating the “apes and pigs,” distribute Mein Kampf and the Protocols, or plot in the cities of France and Germany to blow up the Pentagon and the World Trade Center — all that was about things “over there” and in a strange way was thought to ensure that Europe got a pass at home.

But the trump card was always triangulation against the United States. Most recently anti-Americanism was good street theater in Rome, Paris, London, and the capitals of the “good” West.

But then came Madrid — and the disturbing fact that after the shameful appeasement of its withdrawal from Iraq, further plots were hatched against Spanish justices and passenger trains.

Surely a Holland would be exempt — Holland of wide-open Amsterdam fame where anything goes and Muslim radicals could hate in peace. Then came the butchering of Theo Van Gogh and the death threats against parliamentarian Hirsi Ali — and always defiance and promises of more to come rather than apologies for their hatred.

Yet was not Britain different? After all, its capital was dubbed Londonistan for its hospitality to Muslims across the globe. Radical imams openly preached jihad against the United States to their flock as thanks for being given generous welfare subsidies from her majesty’s government. But it was the United States, not liberal Britain, that evoked such understandable hatred.

But now?

After Holland, Madrid, and London, European operatives go to Israel not to harangue Jews about the West Bank, but to receive tips about preventing suicide bombings. And the cowboy Patriot Act to now-panicked European parliaments perhaps seems not so illiberal after all.

So it is was becoming clear that butchery by radical Muslims in Bali, Darfur, Iraq, the Philippines Thailand, Turkey, Tunisia, and Iraq was not so tied to particular and “understandable” Islamic grievances.

Perhaps the jihadist killing was not over the West Bank or U.S. hegemony after all, but rather symptoms of a global pathology of young male Islamic radicals blaming all others for their own self-inflicted miseries, convinced that attacks on the infidel would win political concessions, restore pride, and prove to Israelis, Europeans, Americans — and about everybody else on the globe — that Middle Eastern warriors were full of confidence and pride after all.

Meanwhile an odd thing happened. It turns out that the jihadists were cowards and bullies, and thus selective in their targets of hatred. A billion Chinese were left alone by radical Islam — even though the Chinese were secularists and mostly godless, as well as ruthless to their own Uighur Muslim minorities. Had bin Laden issued a fatwa against Beijing and slammed an airliner into a skyscraper in Shanghai, there is no telling what a nuclear China might have done.

India too got mostly a pass, other than the occasional murdering by Pakistani zealots. Yet India makes no effort to apologize to Muslims. When extremists occasionally riot and kill, they usually cease quickly before the response of a much more unpredictable angry populace.

What can we learn from all this?

Jihadists hardly target particular countries for their “unfair” foreign policies, since nations on five continents suffer jihadist attacks and thus all apparently must embrace an unfair foreign policy of some sort.

Typical after the London bombing is the ubiquitous Muslim spokesman who when asked to condemn terrorism, starts out by deploring such killing, assuring that it has nothing to do with Islam, yet then ending by inserting the infamous “but” — as he closes with references about the West Bank, Israel, and all sorts of mitigating factors. Almost no secular Middle Easterners or religious officials write or state flatly, “Islamic terrorism is murder, pure and simple evil. End of story, no ifs or buts about it.”

Second, thinking that the jihadists will target only Israel eventually leads to emboldened attacks on the United States. Assuming America is the only target assures terrorism against Europe. Civilizations will either hang separately or triumph over barbarism together. It is that simple — and past time for Europe and the United States to rediscover their common heritage and shared aims in eradicating this plague of Islamic fascism.

Third, Islamicists are selective in their attacks and hatred. So far global jihad avoids two billion Indians and Chinese, despite the fact that their countries are far tougher on Muslims than is the United States or Europe. In other words, the Islamicists target those whom they think they can intimidate and blackmail.

Unfettered immigration, billions in cash grants to Arab autocracies, alliances of convenience with dictatorships, triangulation with Middle Eastern patrons of terror, blaming the Jews — civilization has tried all that.

It is time to relearn the lessons from the Cold War, when we saw millions of noble Poles, Romanians, Hungarians, and Czechs as enslaved under autocracy and a hateful ideology, and in need of democracy before they could confront the Communist terror in their midst.

But until the Wall fell, we did not send billions in aid to their Eastern European dictatorships nor travel freely to Prague or Warsaw nor admit millions of Communist-ruled Bulgarians and Albanians onto our shores

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Sometimes it is more important to protect LIFE than Liberty

[bodypilot90 0]

Very good article. Do you have a link?

[storm1977 0]

http://www.nationalreview.com/...nson200507220816.asp

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Sometimes it is more important to protect LIFE than Liberty

[JohnRich 4]

Excellent! Thanks for posting it.

[bodypilot90 0]

where are the lefties........scared of facts I guess

[waltappel 1]

Quote

where are the lefties........scared of facts I guess

The lefties have no fear whatsoever of the facts. They simply ignore them when convenient.

I can't say the right-wingers are all that much different but they seem to ignore facts much less often.

Walt

[kallend 2,175]

Quote

where are the lefties........scared of facts I guess

Sitting back laughing at the neo-cons having orgasms over this guy.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[bodypilot90 0]

knew i could count on you comrad

[storm1977 0]

That's a nice one Kallend.... small statement and run away.

It is an excellent description of the history of the region and how the US and Europe were caught off guard.
I think a lot can be said about European Guilt like was mentioned in the article, but I would go even further and include american liberals in there too.

Stop symathizing with terrorists and start realizing they want you dead... Not because of Iraq, not because of Isreal, not because of Saudi, or the crusades. But because they are a flawed group of extremists who feel their own plight can't be there own fault, so it must be everyone elses.

BTW - I doubt you even read the whole thing.

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Sometimes it is more important to protect LIFE than Liberty

[Newbie 0]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, as is Victor Hanson (not HansEn). Personally i would rather hear it straight from the horses mouth as to why Islamic terrorists do what they do and you can do so here:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79C6AF22-98FB-4A1C-B21F-2BC36E87F61F.htm

Please note the references to many different factors in the reasoning for the attacks (or "excuses" as you might refer to them), notably the wars in Iraq.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[justinb138 0]

They make up excuses for what they do to try and justify it. They do what they do because they enjoy killing people, simple as that.

You can ask them why they do what they do, but I can't see a good reason to actually believe what they say.

[wmw999 2,600]

If you want people to change their behavior, you can either force them, or get them to go along.

If you force them, then you have to watch all the time, and stay one step ahead of them so that you can be ready when they figure out a new way to do what they want to do.

If you get them to go along, you first have to figure out why THEY think they're doing it, and then give them information so THEY can think they're making the right decision. Telling someone "you're a dumbass" might not be the best way to get them to see the error of their ways.

It's a whole lot cheaper to do the second way, and a much better way in the long run. Prisons are a whole lot more expensive than schools.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[justinb138 0]

Yep.

[beowulf 1]

Education only works for those willing to learn and apply what they have learned.

[SpeedRacer 1]

Quote

India too got mostly a pass, other than the occasional murdering by Pakistani zealots. Yet India makes no effort to apologize to Muslims. When extremists occasionally riot and kill, they usually cease quickly before the response of a much more unpredictable angry populace.

India got a pass? India has lost MILLIONS of people over the years due to terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists.

Speed Racer
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[Darius11 12]

How many articles do you want me to post about how Israelis have killed children, tortured thousands, not to mention taken a nations home land.

Here is one example.
Maybe you will understand how you can hate someone so much that you are willing to trow rocks even when the Israelis shoot back with bullets.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=1802

Quote

Diary of a trip to Palestine and Israel
Road Rage
by Judy Rebick
June 05, 2002

Printer Friendly Version
EMail Article to a Friend
Monday, June 3. Monique Simard and I watched from atop a hill. At first, the scene was not so strange: the tear gas, the people running away and back again. It was a little like the scene at the fence in Quebec City last April.

But here there was one difference. When the shooting began, no one knew if the soldiers were shooting real bullets.

For most of the afternoon, checkpoints on the road linking Jerusalem and Ramallah had remained closed. Palestinians working in Jerusalem and living in Ramallah couldn't get home. Frustration grew as the afternoon wore on. A few walked forward to speak or argue with the guards.

Travelling with a French delegation, we had entered Ramallah hours earlier for meetings. But the checkpoints closed after the morning commuter rush. As evening approached, a crowd of several hundred Palestinians still waited to re-enter the city.

Soldiers shot tear gas to disperse them. A few young boys who I had seen earlier gathering rocks started throwing them at the soldiers.

That's when the soldiers started shooting. People ran in all directions.

As we had been instructed, we walked slowly away.

"Come, come," one man yelled. He waved us to take refuge from the bullets behind a car parked nearby.

As extraordinary as the experience was for us, here it is a daily ritual. Earlier in the afternoon, we watched Israeli soldiers drive their tanks back and forth, scattering people waiting to cross another checkpoint.

There seemed to be no clear reason for either incident.

We met today with Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees. According to Barghouthi, these checkpoint dramas are simply a method of harassing and humiliating Palestinians.

Like the 5,000 students at Birzeit University living in Ramallah who must cross two checkpoints to get to school - back and forth every day - walking one kilometre at each checkpoint.

"There is no security reason for this checkpoint. It is just to humiliate the Palestinians and to provoke even more rage," says Barghouthi. The Occupation, he insists, continues fully: "To tell you the truth, there is no Palestinian Authority."

What we are witnessing, argues Barghouthi, is an annexation of the West Bank - the same process as in 1948 when the State of Israel was founded on previously Palestinian land. This is a war of settlements, and the ultimate goal is to annex the West Bank.

The current struggle, he said, will decide if there will be 2 independent states - Israel and Palestine - or one apartheid State of Israel.



Tuesday, June 4. It feels like a Berlin Wall in the making. Last night we watched as soldiers tear-gassed and shot at the line of people waiting at a checkpoint on the road between Jerusalem and Ramallah. This morning we were there again, waiting with the people in line.

Our delegation left the hotel at 7 a.m. to reach a conference scheduled for 10:30 in Ramallah. It was just 10 kilometres away, but we barely made it in time. The trip took three hours. Frustrating. But our experience here is daily reality for the women we spoke to while stalled at the checkpoint.

"We cannot breathe," one woman said, jammed up against us in the crowd. "We cannot work - we cannot take care of our families. They have taken away our lives."

After waiting for ninety minutes, half of the people were turned back. Today they were only allowing in foreigners and people who lived in Ramallah. Tomorrow, who knows?

We met a dentist who lives in Jerusalem and works in Ramallah. "It is just awful," she told us. "I told them my patients are waiting for me on the other side. But they don't care."

Like everyone else here, she asked us to tell people in Canada what is happening. She is angry at the Israelis and - as with many here - her anger is entangled with anti-Semitism. "They control the media," she explains.

I have to admit that, sweating among these frustrated people, I was not about to tell her that I too am Jewish. Or that the problem is not that Jews "control the media" - but that the Israeli government and its supporters around the world are brilliant at getting their message out.

One example. Yesterday, I learned that the right of return for refugees was not the reason for the Palestinian rejection of the Camp David proposals. (Not widely reported in the West.) Rather, the Israelis refused to agree to the Palestinians controlling their own borders; they were not actually ceding control of East Jerusalem. Most important, to protect Arafat's credibility, the Palestinians wanted joint control of Haram Al-Sharif - one of Islam's holiest sites, also believed to contain the ruins of Judaism' holiest temple. But the Israelis weren't budging.

The deepest hate that I saw today was not among the Palestinians in line, though. It appeared in the expression of one Israeli soldier. He kept walking up to our line and ordering us to move back. On one occasion, he spit in front of us with such hatred in his face that I felt, for the first time, truly afraid.



Yesterday we met with Adam Keller, a Jewish activist from the peace group Gush Shalom. He seemed terribly tired.

"It is very difficult," he told us. "Like all Israelis, I am afraid of the suicide bombers. Every day we live this fear, never knowing if we or our families will be victims of a bombing. But what makes me different is that I understand that this is the only way Palestinians feel they can fight back against the terrible injustice being inflicted on them by my government."

He says that most Israelis know more about what's going on in New York or Paris than they do about daily life in Ramallah. "Most of the Israeli media has become a war propaganda machine. Israelis are terrorized and this favours Sharon's policies."

Most of the Palestinians we have talked with don't agree with the suicide bombers and even feel that they are hurting the Palestinian cause. But many won't denounce them. One NGO official told us that the Palestinians have developed a culture of resistance that includes the "romance of sacrifice." He says the ones to denounce are those who recruit young people as suicide bombers, exploiting their desperation for political ends.

Adam tells us a story of hope in an apparently hopeless situation: He decided to help out an Arab friend forced to flee his job as a cook when it became illegal for Palestinian nationals to work in Israel. When Adam went to the bank to arrange a monthly transfer of funds to his friend in Ramallah, he discovered that many Israelis were doing the same thing.

"Perhaps these individual relationships between Israelis and Palestinians can give us some hope," he said, if sadly. "But then my aunt has told me stories about how some of the worst anti-Semites in Poland hid Jews they knew personally from the Nazis."

I do find cause for hope in the people I am meeting here - people working in the many NGOs that seem to provide most of the social services and infrastructure. More on this soon.

Tomorrow, we go to Gaza.


June 5.

This morning, as you probably know, there was another suicide bombing. It was a car bomb that blew up next to a bus and at least 18 people were killed. We were on our way to Gaza when it happened and we had turn back because all checkpoints were closed.

Our driver, a Palestinian, expressed the horror of the ordinary people here. "No-one knows what is going to happen next. I have lived here 44 years and it has never been so bad. Before there was war but now everyone from the new born baby to the 100 year old woman is affected."

Last night, I met the cousin of a suicide bomber.

Our group was having a beer debriefing and planning the next few days.

Asseil, the Palestinian student in our group suddenly asks, "Would you like to meet the parents of a suicide bomber?" We turned to him a bit stunned. How would we do that?

He points to the man at the next table to whom he has been chatting in Arabic. He is the cousin of suicide bomber. We invited the man who I will call Ahmed to talk with us.

He said he felt very bad about his cousin. He explained that the whole extended family was suffering in the aftermath of the bombing. That afterwards the family felt this young man was a bit different than them, easily manipulated perhaps. Before the bombing, however, they had no idea he would do something like that.

His cousin had lost his job a few weeks before but he said, "I lost my job too because of the Israelis, many people have lost their jobs and they haven't done anything like that."

Ahmed worries that the world sees the Palestinian people as violent and bloodthirsty. "We just want to be left alone to live," he explained. "We don't like the violence or the blood. I don't like seeing my brother killed. We want peace."

"There was peace for so many years, from 1994 to 2000. Who ended the peace?" he asks. "It was not us who drove tanks into Tel Aviv."

We assumed that he was critical of his cousin's action. But as the conversation proceeded, it became clear that we were projecting.

Ahmed is proud of his cousin. "He died for us," he went on. "He died for the Palestinian people. He is a hero." Then in the next breath, "we wish he had had a child so he would not have done this. I have a child and that's why I would never do it."

Proud of his cousin for what he did, Ahmid only feels badly because his cousin is dead.

"But if you call him a hero," asked Monique, "won't other young people want to do the same thing?' A shrug in reply

"And doesn't it bother you that he killed innocent people," I ask.

"They (the Israelis) kill innocent people."

"But that's bad isn't it?"

"Yes but everything here is bad."

Ahmed was in an Israeli prison for two years, for being a student activist, he says. At first he doesn't want to talk about it and has tears in his eyes even thinking about it. Later he says, "I would like you to spend just one night in that prison and for one or two nights wear the shirt I had to wear, summer and winter"

Later he shows us a slightly mangled foot. "The Israeli soldier stood on the top of the jeep and jumped down on my foot," he describes how it happened.

"We need an alternative," he says. "But until then we have to fight back."

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

[StreetScooby 5]

I have a friend who went to Israel. He's a very level headed guy. He was appalled how the Israelis treated the Palestinians - quote "...worse than dogs"

Not that I'm taking sides here... I don't particularly care for either side.

We are all engines of karma

[Darius11 12]

Quote

I have a friend who went to Israel. He's a very level headed guy. He was appalled how the Israelis treated the Palestinians - quote "...worse than dogs"

Not that I'm taking sides here... I don't particularly care for either side.

I also am not saying that it is ok to kill people.
All i want is for people to see why and what drives someone to take his own life to kill someone.

The abuse they have received over the past years is Horrendous. Then they wonder why they are hated.
No one cares about their religion, the only thing people care about is how inhumane the Israelis have been.
Thats why they are hated.

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

[Darius11 12]

Here is more.
Please note Arabs, or Muslims did not write these diaries.
Edit to add link
http://www.labournet.org.uk/so/57palestine.htm

There is 100 of accounts. All you have to do is search or want to see it.

Quote

Palestine diary

Tony Richardson



On arriving at Tel Aviv airport, the security cannot understand why anybody would want to come to Israel for a holiday.

For the first two days I stayed in Jerusalem, waiting for training. So I walk around the old city looking at the various religious sites. This is extremely difficult because the traders are desperate for customers, and I appear to be the only tourist. So I elicit a Palestinian tour guide.

We reach a position overlooking the Wailing Wall, and as we look at the Al Aqsa mosque an Israeli man, seeing that I was accompanied by a young Palestinian, said "That is where we are going to build our Third Temple". Since this would mean knocking down the third most important Muslim religious site, this was quite a statement.

Apart from all the soldiers walking about the Palestinian part of the city, there are also armed settlers, with their hands on their Uzis.

Later on, as I walk past Damascus Gate, I notice some soldiers have lined up a group of Palestinians, and occasionally kick them, whenever they seem to protest. Apparently this is because they have the wrong colour identity cards. Palestinians from the West Bank are not allowed into Jerusalem. Never mind the importance to them of this city.

I then head for Beit Sahour, for training. The International Solidarity Movement training involves agreement on our activities being non-violent, on avoiding cultural offence, and making it clear that we’re here to support the Palestinians, and not tell them what to do. It also involves measures to maintain our own safety. We are all assigned to affinity groups, who look after each other, and we each have a buddy, who specifically watches the other, in demonstrations or other activities.

One thing I learned, whilst here is that there are large number of Christian Palestinians, something you never hear in the media – obviously because this goes against the idea of some kind of cultural war.

We make a visit to Deheishe camp. Here we visit the home of a suicide bomber: the Israeli army is threatening to knock it down. It is a large house with the mother living on one floor, and three brothers each having a floor with their families. In these refugee camps the houses are built together, with only a narrow roadways between. If the house is knocked down, at least six other houses will be heavily affected. Even the neighbours have moved some of their furniture away, because when the Israeli army comes it only ever gives 20 minutes’ notice to get out. So the residents have no time to take their possessions.

When we talked to one of the brothers, he said that if he had known his brother was going to do what he did, he would have stopped him, as would their mother. But he also explained the mental state that his brother had been in: it was at the time of the Jenin attacks by the Israeli army. He himself said that he was in favour of discussing with the Israelis to achieve a peaceful settlement, as he would still be even if they knocked down his house.

As we looked from the roof of this house at the surrounding hills we could see two large Jewish settlements. But he also pointed out a caravan parked on the hill facing us: he explained this was the start of a new settlement, and it was on Palestinian land. There was nothing they could do about it. Our guide explained that he had a piece of land, that he had been trying to get building permission for seven years .

The settlements dominate everything. In the area of Bethlehem these settlements used 87 per cent of the water, and during summer the Palestinian areas have varying periods of water shutdown. This of course never applies to the settlements, which continue to use their sprinklers, swimming pools etc. Special roads, which only the settlers are allowed to use, are built to the settlements.

Whilst I was there, there was a case reported in the newspapers, in which some Palestinian families had gone to court to try to stop the Israeli army knocking down their houses, for a road to a settlement. The judge argued that the fact the settlement was illegal was irrelevant, that the army had a duty to provide security for Israeli citizens, and therefore could knock down these houses.

All the settlements are illegal, but the Israeli state defends them on the grounds that they were gained in a war of legitimate self-defence, from Jordan and Syria, and they are kept on the grounds that they are part of the "historic lands". UN resolutions have been passed, demanding the return of the land that was taken in the 1967 invasions. Not only does Israel continue to ignore these resolutions, but it lays claim to the land. What a difference here from the way the US and other countries treat Iraq’s attitude to UN resolutions.

On the Saturday, 10th August, we attended a demonstration of 700, in Bethlehem, next to the Church of the Nativity. This was meant to be a joint demonstration, for peace, with a Jewish group, Ta’ayush. The 300 Jewish demonstrators were stopped at the Beit Sahour checkpoint, and fire hoses used to stop them getting through. The Israeli state regularly tries to stop joint demonstrations.

We then left for Nablus. We as well as many Palestinians, including a woman with an obviously sick baby, were held for about an hour at the checkpoint outside Beit Sahour.

NABLUS:

We went through the checkpoint at Nablus without too much problem. The town had been under a 24 hour curfew for 55 days at that point. The curfew was only lifted for a couple of hours every few days.

It has wide streets, and looked like one of those movies after a nuclear holocaust, deserted. Then the children started coming out to greet us, asking the question that was nearly to drive us mad "What’s your name"?

Then came a deafening noise, and as it came closer the streets cleared again. This was tanks, which ignored us, and thundered past.

We met up with the ISM organisers, and were allocated various duties. The following day I nd two young Americans were to go to a village, and hear about their problems.

New Nablus, which contains the University, is on the way to the village. Here we encountered a road block, by a military vehicle. This was mounted 24 hours a day, and was designed to stop villagers from several surrounding villages entering Nablus. The soldiers stopped us, took our passports, and kept us for one hour.

Two Palestinians were stopped for a similar length of time: the elder of them was only 100 yards from his mother’s home. The soldiers were only 18 or 19 years old, with the man in charge not much older. He argued he was just doing his job, didn’t want to be there, and didn’t believe that politics should be mixed with the military. It was strange to hear this argued by a man with a machine-gun pointed at Palestinians … a situation which is at the centre of world politics.

To reach the village, we have to go over an earth barricade. The village is called Iraq Boreen. Iraq means big rock, which is what it is built on. A dramatically beautiful place. We met our contacts, and were fed and accommodated for the next two days.

The problems of the village were not exactly the same as Nablus. The people could walk in the streets, but not really leave the village. The Israelis had blown up their well, and so they had to get their water from another village. But the Israelis had built two earth barricades between the two villages, and so they were desperate for water.

The people with work in Nablus could not go to work. Most of the workers are farm workers and so relying on the sale of their fruit in Nablus, they took the cactus fruit and figs by donkey. But they are not allowed to take the donkeys past the checkpoint, and had been made to sit out in the sun for two hours that morning. This fruit was being ruined.

If people are sick, they can’t get medicines, the village has no doctor. Ambulances cannot get to the village, and on one occasion we saw a sick man who had to walk miles to meet an ambulance. Children have to walk through checkpoints to get to school, and they are often stopped. Students from the villages who go to university have to get rooms in town, with the added expense, to be sure of getting to their courses.

Freedom of movement is denied to Palestinians. This is the starkest of the problems, and cannot be understood unless you see it. We saw its meaning at the checkpoints, people unable to visit their fiancé, or their mother in hospital, or go to a wedding. Such things as eating out, going to the cinema, theatre or music are out of the question. One is imprisoned in one’s home, or village. No wonder many homes have satellite TV: and what a surprise see Mr Bean so popular.

Another problem is the difficulty of having any kind of family life. One woman described how her husband goes away for 4 weeks at a time, to work, then comes back for one day. Another man told how his wife had a Jordanian identity card, and went to visit her parents in Jordan 2 years ago, but was not allowed back, he has not seen her since. (Compare this to people only having to claim Jewish grandparents, to come from anywhere in the world to Israel.)

Threat to houses. At the end of June two villagers from Iraq Boreen, and one from nearby Tell, were shot dead by IDF forces. They had been working away, and were returning to their families: one was 21 and another 20. As they were returning the IDF forces were carrying out an operation, and took them for fighters, and shot them dead.

They then did the usual cover-up, putting guns alongside them, and claiming the dead men were fighters. But everybody I spoke to in the village assured me that they were not – and people tend to be proud of fighters. The Israelis are now threatening to knock down their family houses.

It should be explained that the Palestinians consider anybody killed by the Israelis as a martyr, while the IDF threaten to knock down the houses of anybody known to resist, though the media presents it as though they are only threatening the houses of suicide bombers.

That evening we sat and drank tea on the roof of a house from which, on a clear day, you could see the Mediterranean. We watched the sun go down, and realised how beautiful this would be if the Palestinians were free.

On the Tuesday morning we went, with the donkeys, down to the checkpoint. The soldiers would not let them through. A fire engine arrived, to pick up a worker from nearby. The army stopped it, and made the workers all get out, and open up the sides. The driver said he had permission from the area commander. They were still made to wait for 20 minutes.

Community workers like these, ambulances, refuse workers, are supposedly allowed to function, but the previous day a power worker had been stopped in Nablus, and when he got out of his vehicle was shot in the head. This was one of the few times the IDF said they had made a "mistake".

At the checkpoint the soldiers had said to us that while we just saw four Palestinians, they saw four potential bombers. Could there be a clearer statement of collective punishment? It seems no one is innocent until proven guilty!

When we arrived back in Nablus we learnt that the army had come to one of the houses in Balata camp, that internationals had been sleeping in, at 2.30 in the morning. Ever since the Israeli court judgement that cleared the IDF to destroy houses, the ISM had been allocating people to martyrs’ houses, to try to stop them being destroyed, or at least publicise the IDF’s activities.

The particular house was that of the Atiti family. One brother had been killed on a mission in Israel, and the army was searching for Allah, another brother. They had started by firing against the walls, and then had sent in a human shield, a neighbour.

The army had agreed to stop this practice, in the Israeli high court, 3 months earlier. All they did was to change its name to "neighbour practice". (Three days later a 19 year-old Palestinian was shot dead, when the IDF used this technique to protect themselves, they also bulldozed the house with the militant inside it).

The IDF had told the Atitis that they would be back to destroy the house. So the next night 15 of us were allocated to this house. Techniques were devised, such as some agreeing to be chained to the walls, to make it difficult for the IDF. The newspapers were informed about our plans, and the army decided not to return. I stayed the remaining three nights in that house.

In the morning about a dozen of us returned, with picks and shovels, to Iraq Boreen. With the help of villagers we knocked down the two earth barriers between that village and Tell. It was great to sit in the village and watch the water lorries. It took two lorries 5 days to resupply the village.

We then returned to Balata. It should be said that the IDF could not enforce the curfew within the camp. So the market stalls continued, and the cafes, chemist shops etc. opened. Every so often the tanks would come to the entrance, fire in the air, and the kids would come out throwing stones. The nights were different, there was firing throughout the night on the Tuesday night, sometimes as close as two tiny streets away. Nearly every night somebody was shot dead in Nablus: one night three were killed.

A demonstration of young people within Nablus took place without incident. A lot of the internationals’ activities were with the young people. One particularly symbolic activity took place on the Thursday. One of the few things that young people can do in their houses, from the roofs is fly kites, and every night the skies of Nablus are filled with kites. So an event was organised, in a large field next to Balata, flying kites.

The Israelis tried to disrupt the start of this breach of the curfew, by sending tanks, and drawing out the kids to throw stones. But a group of internationals chased them away. For the rest of the afternoon a large crowd of children, and their families came out, with the food vendors, a great family day. The internationals stood in the way of any returning tanks.

As a group of us left Nablus on the Friday morning, the internationals had just completed knocking down a barricade between Balata, and another refugee camp Asker.

RAMALLAH:

On the Saturday morning I set off for Ramallah, from East Jerusalem. This involves getting a shared Taxi to Qualandia checkpoint, getting out, then getting through, after queueing, then a shared taxi in to Ramallah. Here the curfew is lifted between 6 am and 6 p.m., on most days, but not always, so nothing can be planned. I checked in to hotel, and set about phoning and meeting people.

First stop was the Democracy and Workers Rights Centre. Over their front door was a banner calling for the release of Marwan Barghouti, and all the Palestinian prisoners. Many of the people I have met have spent time in Israeli prisons, and, particularly young males are still being put away without charge. (This is using British Mandate legislation brought in during the war.)

Here I met Hasan Barghouti. He described their work, as mainly being legal cases, for compensation for loss of jobs, mostly against Israeli employers. These employers claim they are not to blame for workers not being able to get to work, that it is a political decision that closed the checkpoints. The DWRC also train workers, and campaign for better social services.

The previous day a demonstration of more than a thousand workers in Gaza had demanded better Social Insurance. The trade unions had called the police, because they saw the demonstration as being against the Palestinian Authority, as the Israeli media tries to present it. But the problem is that the PA controls the purse strings, so who do you go to if you are desperate?

Some, such as teachers, and bank workers have workers’ committees that act for that workplace, and some have got together, but not many. Obviously with the level of unemployment (figures between 55 and 80% were quoted at me) not much "normal" trade union activity can take place.

But the centre believes in trying to train people for this activity, they have had relations with Ruskin College in Britain and the Trade Union International Research and Education Group, in the past. They hold courses, some just for women. They also try to support working class students. I agreed to send Trades Council addresses, and keep in touch.

Next stop was the Media group, HDIP, but unable to get interview with Mustafa Barghouti, as he was too busy. This is one of the problems of the present situation, the inability to plan as to where you will be, and when.

Next stop Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions. My host Mohammad Aruri, who is on the Executive of the union, runs the Ramallah office, and is in charge of their legal affairs department.

This small office is incredibly busy, with people queueing in the mornings: this again is to deal with masses of legal cases, and with payments. The IDF had broken the doors in April, taken all their computers, printers and records. Now they have just one computer, but luckily they had kept copies of their records.

Mohammad has been imprisoned seven times by the Israelis, and was at the Madrid Peace talks, since when he has not been picked up. He explained the difficulty of functioning, when you can’t move about. The Executive can’t meet, he can’t go to their head office in Nablus, he can’t go to Jerusalem, where they have 14 lawyers acting for them, dealing with 3,500 cases. The lawyers can’t come to Ramallah.

The unemployment is by far the biggest problem. Places are closing all the time, or they are saying to workers come back in a month, with no money.

The logistics of functioning a workplace, with the checkpoints, and curfews is a nightmare. First you have to get your raw materials, from a source in the West Bank, that may not be able to farm, or produce it, or from Israel, which controls all borders and therefore can make you buy expensive Israeli goods. Then you have to get your workers in, and back out if a curfew exists; sometimes the workers have to go through checkpoints, and therefore change shared taxis, thus making it too expensive, and time consuming for them. Finally you have to distribute your commodity, either locally with great difficulty, or through the borders, and make tax payments to the Israeli state. No wonder the unemployment is so high. The PA employs about 150,000, without this it would be catastrophic.

The PA has decided to distribute most of its aid to workers through the unions. So although the unions don’t touch the money, they issue the cheques. This involves aid money, and donations from Arab countries etc. Whilst I was there they were issuing 500 Shekel cheques (about £70), and they sometimes issue food vouchers. But Mohammad tells me that they don’t get enough to do this frequently enough for people to survive on this money.

They also issue health vouchers, which mean their members get free basic treatment in state hospitals. For 25 shekels a year membership, it is no wonder that he can claim that union membership has gone from 30% to 90% in the last 2 years.

The union also runs courses on the new Palestinian Labour Codes (the first they have had), ten in Ramallah this month, and get the people to them. They want help with a project to teach staff, and legal dept. about International labour laws, ILO conventions, and labour rights. Had coffee with Mohammad in beautiful art cafe. Then back to hotel.

In the morning a guide took me around. Went to Arafat’s compound, and back past bombed school, then in to centre. Here there was a demonstration, complaining about the continued encirclement. Consisted of several dignitaries, including interior minister, and Moustafa Barghouti.

JERUSALEM:

I returned to Jerusalem, where I arranged a discussion with a radical Jewish activist. He was quite defeatist, believing the present regime was rolling down a slope, with nothing to stop it, and receiving the backing of the US.

He said that many of his friends were considering leaving Israel, or at least sending their children away. He said that on previous occasions their had been sizeable opposition to some of the state’s activities, but this was now very small.

I walked back through West Jerusalem, where the shops and cafes are functioning normally, albeit with guards at their entrances.

In the morning I had a last look around the old city, there you could buy tiny IDF jackets for small children, as well as hats. Will this be on the front of the Sun?

Then off to the Airport and home.

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

[Sen.Blutarsky 0]

I pinpointed a source of Palestinian misery for you Darius. Muslims need only glance at a mirror.


Yassir Arafat: 1929-2004

EARLY LIFE

It's ironic that the man who personified the Palestinian movement was neither born in the region it claims, nor conforms to his own organization's definition of Palestinian identity. Yassir Arafat, whose real name is Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, was born in August 1929 in Cairo, son of an Egyptian textile merchant. He was sent to Jerusalem as a small child after his mother died, then returned to Egypt via Gaza.

Throughout his career, Arafat's Egyptian background was a political impediment and source of personal embarrassment. One biographer notes that upon first meeting him in 1967, 'West Bankers did not like his Egyptian accent and ways and found them alien,' and to the very end Arafat employed an aide to translate his Egyptian dialect into Palestinian Arabic for conversing with his West Bank and Gaza subjects.

As a young man, Arafat took no part in the formative experience of the Palestinian movement ― the 1948 Arab-Israeli war ― but he would nonetheless claim refugee status throughout his life: 'I am a refugee,' he cried out in a 1969 interview, 'Do you know what it means to be a refugee? I am a poor and helpless man. I have nothing, for I was expelled and dispossessed of my homeland.' (Arafat's congenital lying would continue for decades.)

FATAH AND THE PLO

In the mid-1950s, Arafat joined the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, then rose to the head of the Palestine Student Union at the University of Cairo. In the late 1950s Arafat moved to Kuwait, where he co-founded Fatah ('Palestine National Liberation Movement' ― an acronym meaning 'conquest'), the faction that would later gain control over the entire Palestinian movement. Fatah's motley ranks of Islamists, communists and pan-Arabists expanded via brute violence. 'People aren't attracted to speeches, but rather to bullets,' Arafat quipped at this stage. (At right: Fatah logo of rifles and grenades over Israel)

Fatah began military-style training in Syria and Algeria in 1964, and the following year tried unsuccessfully to blow up a major Israeli water pump. Fatah's stated goal was the obliteration of the State of Israel, and well before the 1967 war would supply a pretext, Arafat's organization repeatedly attacked Israeli buses, homes, villages and rail lines.

This violence against Israeli civilians was a pillar of the Palestinian National Covenant (the foundational charter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization - PLO), which states that 'the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence' and that 'armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine and is therefore a strategy and not a tactic.' (Despite repeated Palestinian commitments in the late 1990s to annul these sections of the covenant, it was never officially changed.)
Arafat's public profile got a boost in 1968, when the IDF raided a Fatah terrorist stronghold in the Jordanian village of al-Karameh. The uniformed, keffiyah-clad Arafat took this opportunity to project himself as a fearless Arab leader who, despite the post-Six Day War gloom, dared to confront the Israelis. The image stuck, and Fatah's numbers swelled with new recruits.

Arafat and Fatah consolidated power through bribery, extortion and murder, and at the Palestinian National Congress in Cairo in February 1969, Arafat was appointed head of the PLO ― a position he would never relinquish.

JORDAN, LEBANON AND TUNISIA

By the late 1960s, heavily-armed, Arafat-led Palestinians had formed a terrorist 'state within a state' in Jordan, not only attacking Israeli civilian targets, but also seizing control of Jordanian infrastructure.

The tension reached a height during late 1970, when Jordan's King Hussein cracked down on the Palestinian factions. During this bloody conflict, known as 'Black September', Palestinians hijacked four Western airliners and blew one up on a Cairo runway (pictured at right), to both embarrass the Egyptians and Jordanians and, in their words, 'teach the Americans a lesson for their long-standing support of Israel.' With the broad publicity this generated, Arafat had hit the world stage.
When King Hussein drove Arafat's faction out of his Jordanian kingdom (causing thousands of civilian deaths), they relocated in Lebanon. As in Jordan, Arafat soon triggered a bloody civil war in his previously stable host country. Simultaneously, the PLO launched intermittent attacks on Israeli towns from southern Lebanese positions.

Yassir Arafat then brought the high-profile terrorist act to western soil. In Sept. 1972, Fatah-backed terrorists kidnapped and murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic games. And in 1973, Arafat ordered his operatives in the Khartoum, Sudan office of Fatah to abduct and murder US Ambassador Cleo Noel and two other diplomats. (In 2004, the FBI finally opened an official investigation against Arafat for the Khartoum murders.)
The wanton violence fueled Arafat's political goals, as his presence on the world stage grew: In 1974, he became the first representative of a nongovernmental organization to address a plenary session of the UN General Assembly (pictured at left) In the speech, with a gun holster strapped to his hip, Arafat compared himself to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Arab heads of states declared the PLO the sole legitimate representative of all Palestinians, the PLO was granted full membership in the Arab League in 1976, and by 1980 was fully recognized by European nations.

In 1978-82, the IDF invaded Lebanon to root out PLO groups that had continually terrorized the northern Israeli populace. The U.S. brokered a cease-fire deal in which Arafat and the PLO were allowed to leave Lebanon; Arafat and the PLO leadership eventually settled in Tunisia, which remained his center of operations until 1993.
During the 1980s, Arafat received financial assistance from Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, which allowed him to rebuild the battered PLO. This was particularly useful during the first Palestinian intifada in 1987 ― Arafat took control of the violence from afar, and it was mainly due to Fatah forces in the West Bank that the anti-Israel terror and civil unrest could be maintained. Arafat would then become nearly the only world leader to support Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf War. (Saddam would later repay this loyalty by sending $25,000 checks to families of Palestinian suicide bombers.)

THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

In the early 1990s, the U.S. led Israel and the PLO to negotiations that spawned the 1993 Oslo Accords, an agreement that called for the implementation of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over a five-year period. The following year Arafat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin.

In 1994, Arafat moved his headquarters to the West Bank and Gaza to run the Palestinian Authority, an entity created by the Oslo Accords. Arafat brought with him from Tunisia an aging PLO leadership that would bolster his ongoing monopoly over all Palestinian funds, power and authority. Elections in 1996 extended Arafat's control over the PA, but under the Oslo agreement, the term of that candidacy ended in 1999. Arafat never allowed new elections to take place.

While Israel went about implementing its side of the Oslo agreements ― removing troops from nearly all Palestinian areas, recognizing the PA, and educating for peace ― the PA utterly failed to live up to its commitment to renounce and uproot anti-Israel terrorism. Instead, unprecedented incitement from Arafat's official PA media and school textbooks, and active and passive PA support for terrorist groups led to a string of suicide bombings in the mid-1990s that killed scores of Israeli civilians. In October, 1996, at the height of the Oslo years, Arafat cried out to a Bethlehem crowd, 'We know only one word - jihad! Jihad, jihad, jihad! Whoever does not like it can drink from the Dead Sea or from the Sea of Gaza.'

In July 2000, U.S. president Bill Clinton attempted to keep the Oslo Accords viable by convening a summit at Camp David between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. There, Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian state in Gaza and 92% of the West Bank, and a capital in East Jerusalem ― the most generous offer ever from an Israeli government. Yassir Arafat rejected the offer and ended negotiations without a counteroffer. As American envoy Dennis Ross concluded, 'Arafat could not accept Camp David... because when the conflict ends, the cause that defines Arafat also ends.' [See also this interview with Ross on Oslo.]
Immediately following this breakdown, the PA media machine under Arafat's control ramped up the war rhetoric, and preparations were made for riots that were unleashed following Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount. The Arafat-supported 'al Aqsa intifada' would continue for four years. This unprecedented wave of anti-Israel terrorism, which would result in over 1,000 Israeli deaths, was marked by over 120 Palestinian suicide bombers and the growth of an Islamic martyrdom cult.
This stage of violence revealed that Arafat and the PA had never abandoned their longstanding plans to liquidate the Jewish state. Arafat had told an Arab audience in Stockholm in 1996, 'We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion... We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.' Likewise, Arafat explained to a South African crowd in 1994 that the Oslo agreement was merely a tactical ruse in the larger battle to destroy the Jewish state ― a modern version of the Muslim prophet Mohammed's trickery against the ancient tribe of Quraysh. Arafat's colleague Faisal al-Husseini was even more explicit, describing the Oslo process as a 'Trojan Horse' designed to promote the strategic goal of 'Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea' ― that is, a Palestine in place of Israel.

TERRORIST TO THE END

The final phase in Arafat's life-long commitment to organized terror was channeled through the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a Fatah group that was responsible for many of the most deadly attacks against Israeli civilians between 2000-2004. Though many media outlets described a mere 'loose affiliation' between Arafat and this terrorist group, the evidence clearly indicated a direct financial and organizational bond between the two:

▪ In November, 2003 a BBC investigation found that up to $50,000 a month was funneled by Fatah, with Arafat's approval, directly to the Al Aqsa Brigades, for the purpose of organizing bombings, snipings and ambushes against Israeli civilians.

▪ Documents captured by the IDF in 2002 indicated Fatah's 'systematic, institutionalized and ongoing financing' of the Al Aqsa Brigades. (See Arafat's signature on the weapons budget, and this full report from Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.)

▪ The leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades in Tulkarm told USA Today on March 14, 2002: 'The truth is, we are Fatah, but we didn't operate under the name of Fatah...We are the armed wing of the organization. We receive our instructions from Fatah. Our commander is Yasser Arafat himself.'

In addition, Arafat granted free rein to the radical Islamic terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad to perpetrate dozens of horrific acts of civilian murder between 2000-2004. (At left: Arafat with Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, 2003)

DELEGITIMIZATION

In January 2002, the Israeli Navy seized a Gaza-bound, PA-owned freighter ― the Karine A ― that was loaded with more than fifty tons of Iranian ammunition and weapons, including dozens of surface-to-surface Katyusha rockets. (See more on the Karine A.)

In June 2002, upon recognizing Arafat's ongoing financing and abetting of terrorism, U.S. President Bush called for Arafat's removal from power. Progress toward peace required, according to Bush, 'a new and different Palestinian leadership...not compromised by terror.' Release of a U.S.-backed 'road map' for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was therefore delayed until such a new Palestinian leader emerged. On its part, the Israeli government chose to isolate Arafat in his Ramallah compound, the 'Muqata', where he would remain from early 2002 until his final days, and where he was buried.

In April 2003, hours after Mahmoud Abbas assumed the role of Palestinian prime minister, the official road map was released and diplomatic progress began. But Arafat consistently undercut the authority of Abbas, leading to Abbas' resignation and the halting of the road map peace process.

CORRUPTION, AUTOCRACY, JIHAD

Over the course of his 'revolutionary' career, Arafat siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars of international aid money intended to reach the Palestinian people.

Estimates of the degree of Arafat's wealth differ, but are all staggering: In 2003, Forbes magazine listed Arafat in its annual list of the wealthiest 'Kings, Queens and Despots,' with a fortune of 'at least $300 million.' Israeli and US officials estimate Arafat's personal holdings between $1-3 billion.
And while the average Palestinian barely subsisted, Arafat's wife Suha (at left) in Paris received $100,000 each month from PA sources as reported on CBS' 60 Minutes. That CBS report also noted that Arafat maintained secret investments in a Ramallah-based Coca Cola plant, a Tunisian cellphone company, and venture capital funds in the U.S. and the Cayman Islands.

Arafat also used foreign aid funds to pay off cronies who bolstered his autocracy: An International Monetary Fund report indicated that upwards of 8% ($135 million) of the PA's annual budget was handed out by Arafat 'at his sole discretion.' And Arafat's select PA policemen, far from keeping the peace, were repeatedly among the suicide bombers and snipers.

Money was just one method of strengthening Arafat's power apparatus. Critics of his PA government were routinely imprisoned, tortured or beaten. One example: In 1999, Muawiya Al-Masri, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, described Arafat's corruption to a Jordanian newspaper. For this, he was attacked by a gang of masked men and shot three times. Al-Masri survived the ordeal and described Arafat's grip on PA power: 'There is no institutional process. There is only one institution ― the Presidency, which has no law and order and is based on bribing top officials.'
From 2000-2004, Arafat permitted Muslim imams to incite unprecedented anti-Israel and anti-American violence from their mosques and through official PA media. Arafat's Religious Affairs Ministry employed preachers who regularly called for children to 'martyr themselves', and PA television glamorized the act of suicide bombing.

Under Arafat, the Palestinian Authority school textbooks denied Israel's very existence, and jihad was presented to Palestinian children as an admirable course of action. The Jewish people, meanwhile, was represented to schoolchildren as a tricky, greedy and barbarous nation.

Freedom of the press was virtually non-existent during Arafat's reign in Gaza, Jericho and Ramallah ― if it didn't speak favorably of Arafat, it didn't get printed in the PA-controlled media. Moreover, the PA enacted a systematic policy of intimidation of foreign journalists. One case among many: When an AP cameraman captured footage of Palestinian street celebrations following the 9/11 attacks, he was kidnapped, brought to a PA security office, and Arafat's cabinet secretary threatened that the PA 'cannot guarantee [his] life' if the footage was broadcast.

Yet beyond the terrorism, extortion, embezzlement and intimidation lies Arafat's most unfortunate ongoing impact: The inculcation of murderous values in an entire generation of Palestinians, who have been educated ― under Arafat's direction ― to continue the fight of jihad against Israel, rather than compromise to end the decades-long conflict.
How many generations will it take to undo Arafat's dark legacy?

From a source no more biased than the one cited by Darius:
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Yassir_Arafat_1929-2004.asp

[StreetScooby 5]

Quote

http://english.aljazeera.net/...21F-2BC36E87F61F.htm

I just read this article.


...
Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.

And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or Helper. All peace be upon he who follows the Guidance.


So, basically, he's saying we all have to become Muslims to have peace. OBL is full of shit.

We are all engines of karma

[Newbie 0]

No he is not saying that from what i can gather - he is stating that the west must stop meddling in the affairs of the Middle East...

Not that i think what he says counts for much but i can see how infuriating and upsetting it could be for people in the Middle East having westerners involve themselves in their affairs when it's quite obvious it's largely being done out of selfish behaviour and greed. That does not condone the behaviour of terrorists one iota, but i at least am willing to try to understand what is driving people to such extremities. I think more people in the west need to at least gain an understanding of this shit before we can move forward. "Hunting terrorists" is never going to work - kill 1, 10 more sprout in their place, end of story.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[rehmwa 2]

Quote

, end of story.

I love when "end of story", "case closed", and " 'nuff said" show up in forum threads.

never works -

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[Newbie 0]

I actually think it does work, end of story.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[Newbie 0]

j/k

Seriously ,that should have said "IMO" instead of end of story, i don't know why i put that to be honest.

Seriously, i think most terrorists that die/get killed are just made out to be martyrs. I really don't think it's the long term solution, but again, thats just my personal opinion.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts