Arafat's Stripes Are Not Spots By Donnel Jones, November 12, 2003	Home   Search   Forum   Terms

Arafat is at it again. Now he declares Israel has a right to "live in security alongside a future Palestinian state and calling for an end to bloodshed.". Off hand, I don't know if he's said this before but I wouldn't be surprised if he has. It really doesn't matter because when dealing with Arafat you must remember one thing: a tiger doesn't change his stripes to spots.

In his words:

We do not deny the right of the Israeli people to live in security side by side with the Palestinian people also living in their own independent state," Arafat said in his address.

"The time has come for us to get out of this spiral, this destructive war, that will not bring security to you or us," added the ex-guerrilla leader, who denies fomenting bloodshed.

Interesting coming from a man who began the violence after turning down 95% of the West Bank and 100% of Gaza. This is an olive branch? Don't you love the way Reuters claims Arafat is an "ex-guerrilla." Denials knows no bounds.

More importantly, note the language. Arafat says Israel has the "right to live." I'm assuming he said this in English since that is his language of choice for politically-correct statements. Consider what his statement means. With Arafat's record as terrorist and war criminal one could easily interpret his statement to mean, "Israel has a right to live in security [until it is destroyed]."

Far fetched? I don't think so. Where does he anywhere say officially, in writing or in spoken word, that Israel has the right to "exist"? This is not a pedantic consideration. Arafat knows how to be duplicitous better than anyone. Many who are morally clouded about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict will believe, as Reuters seems to imply in the link above, that Arafat is truly mending his ways while Sharon is mending his fence to protect his people.

Word of advice to a beleaguered Israel. Don't trust Arafat's words. How can there be any peace as long as he's around? Most of Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie's cabinet was hand picked by Arafat. Peace now means war tomorrow. For Arafat, Israel has the right to life. Only to mean Arafat believes he has the right to take that life at a moment of opportunity.

He's been trying to do this for forty years.