Arafat, de massamoordenaar van Damour, is dood

[nadine]

Indien Arafat aan AIDS zou gestorven zijn, dan is hier misschien de verklaring te vinden:
http://bangitout.com/yaserMed_Prog001.swf

[nadine]

Nog wat over de genocide van Arafat in Damour. Daar durft de Pravda niet over spreken!
http://www.cedarland.org/damour.html
[size=+1]The Massacre and Destruction of Damour[/size]

Damour lay across the Sidon - Beirut highway about 20 km south of Beirut on the slopes of a foothill of the Lebanon range. On the other side of the road, beyond a flat stretch of coast, is the sea. It was a town of some 25,000 people, containing five churches, three chapels, seven schools, private and public, and one public hospital where Muslims from near by villages were treated along with the Christians, at the expense of the town.

On 9 January 1976, three days after Epiphany, the priest of Damour Father Mansour Labaky, was carrying out a Maronite custom of blessing the houses with holy water. As he stood in front of a house on the side of the town next to the Muslim village of Harat Na’ami, a bullet whistled past his ear and hit the house. Then he heard the rattle of machine-guns. He went inside the house, and soon learned that the town was surrounded. Later he found out by whom and how many — the forces of Sa’iqa, consisting of 16,000 Palestinians and Syrians, and units of the Mourabitoun and some fifteen other militias, reinforced by mercenaries from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and a contingent of Libyans.

Father Labaky telephoned the Muslim sheikh of the district and asked him, as a fellow religious leader, what he could do to help the people of the town. ‘I can do nothing,’ he was told ‘They want to harm you. It is the Palestinians. I cannot stop them.'

While the shooting and some shelling went on all day, Father Labaky telephoned a long list of people, politicians of both the Left and the Right, asking for help. They all said with apologies and commiserations that they could do nothing. Then he telephoned Kamal Jumblatt, in whose parliamentary constituency Damour lay. ‘Father,’ Jumblatt said, ‘I can do nothing for you, because it depends on Yasser Arafat.’ He gave Arafat’s phone number to the priest.

An aide answered, and when he would not call Arafat himself, Father Labaky told him, ‘The Palestinians are shelling and shooting at my town. I can assure you as a religious leader, we do not want the war, we do not believe in violence.’ He added that nearly half the people of Damour had voted for Kamal Jumblatt, ‘who is backing you,’ he reminded the PLO man. The reply was, ‘Father, don’t worry. We don’t want to harm you. If we are destroying you it is for strategical reasons.’
Father Labaky did not feel that there was any less cause for worry because the destruction was for strategical reasons, and he persisted in asking for Arafat to call off his fighters. In the end the aide said that they, PLO headquarters, would ‘tell them to stop shooting’.

By then it was eleven o’clock in the evening. As the minutes passed and the shooting still went on, Father Labaky called Jumblatt again on the telephone and told him what Arafat’s aide had said. Jumblatt’s advice was that the priest should keep trying to make contact with Arafat, and call other friends of his, ‘because’, he said, ‘I do not trust him’.

At about half-past eleven the telephone, water and electricity were all cut off. The first invasion of the town came in the hour after midnight, from the side where the priest had been shot at earlier in the day. The Sa’iqa men stormed into the houses. They massacred some fifty people in the one night. Father Labaky heard screaming and went out into the street. Women came running to him in their nightdresses, ‘tearing their hair, and shouting “They are slaughtering us!” The survivors, deserting that end of the town, moved into the area round the next church. The invaders then occupied the part of the town they had taken. Father Labaky describes the scene:

'In the morning I managed to get to the one house despite the shelling to bring out some of the corpses. And I remember something which still frightens me. An entire family had been killed, the Can’an family, four children all dead, and the mother, the father, and the grandfather. The mother was still hugging one of the children. And she was pregnant. The eyes of the children were gone and their limbs were cut off. No legs and no arms. It was awful. We took them away in a banana truck. And who carried the corpses with me? The only survivor, the brother ofthe man. His name is Samir Can’an. He carried with me the remains of his brother, his father, his sister-in-law and the poor children. We buried them in the cemetery, under the shells of the PLO. And while I was burying them, more corpses were found in the street.'

The town tried to defend itself. Two hundred and twenty-five young men, most of them about sixteen years old, armed with hunting guns and none with military training, held out for twelve days. The citizens huddled in basements, with sandbags piled in front of their doors and ground-floor windows. Father Labaky moved from shelter to shelter to visit the families and take them bread and milk. He went often ‘to encourage the young men defending the town’. The relentless pounding the town received resulted in massive damage. In the siege that had been established on 9 January the Palestinians cut off food and water supplies and refused to allow the Red Cross to take out the wounded. Infants and children died of dehydration. Only three more townspeople were killed as a result of PLO fire between the first night and the last day, 23 January. But on that day, when the final onslaught came, hundreds of the Christians were killed. Father Labaky goes on:

'The attack took place from the mountain behind. It was an apocalypse. They were coming, thousands and thousands, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar! God is great! Let us attack them for the Arabs, let us offer a holocaust to Mohammad ‘And they were slaughtering everyone in their path, men, women and children.'

Whole families were killed in their homes. Many women were gang-raped, and few of them left alive afterwards. One woman saved her adolescent daughter from rape by smearing her face with washing blue to make her look repulsive. As the atrocities were perpetrated, the invaders themselves took photographs and later offered the pictures for sale to European newspapers. Survivors testify to what happened. A young girl of sixteen, Soumavya Ghanimeh, witnessed the shooting of her father and brother by two of the invaders, and watched her own home and the other houses in her street being looted and burned. She explained:

'As they were bringing me through the street the houses were burning all about me. They had about ten trucks standing in front of the houses and were piling things into them. I remember how frightened I was of the fire. I was screaming. And for months afterwards I couldn’t bear anyone to strike a match near me. I couldn’t bear the smell of it'.

She and her mother Mariam, and a younger Sister and infant brother, had been saved from being shot in their house when she ran behind one Palestinian for protection from the pointing gun of the other, and cried out ‘Don’t let him kill us!’; and the man accepted the role of protector which the girl had suddenly assigned to him. ‘If you kill them you will have to kill me too,’ he told his comrade. So the four of them were spared, herded along the streets between the burning houses to be put into a truck, and trans-ported to Sabra camp in Beirut. There they were kept in a crowded prison hut. ‘We had to sleep on the ground, and it was bitterly cold.’
When eventually Father Labaky found the charred bodies of the father and brother in the Ghanimeh house ‘you could no longer tell whether they were men or women’. In a frenzy to destroy their enemies utterly, as if even the absolute limits ofnature could not stop them, the invaders broke open tombs and flung the bones of the dead into the streets.Those who escaped from the first attack tried to flee by any means they could, with cars, carts, cycles and motorbikes. Some went on foot to the seashore to try to get away in boats. But the sea was rough and the wait for rescue was long, while they knew their enemies might fall upon them at any moment.

Some 500 gathered in the Church of St Elias. Father Labaky went there at six in the morning when the tumult of the attack awakened him. He preached a sermon on the meaning of the slaughter of innocents. And he told them candidly that he did not know what to tell them to do. ‘If I say flee to the sea, you may be killed. If I say stay here, you may be killed.’

An old man suggested that they raise a white flag. ‘Perhaps if we surrender they may spare us.' Father Labaky gave him his surplice. He put it on the processional cross and stood it in front of the church. Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door, three quick raps, then three lots of three. They were petrified. Father Labaky said that he would go and see who was there. If it was the enemy, they might spare them. ‘But if they kill us, at least we shall die all together and we’ll have a nice parish in Heaven, 500 persons, and no check points!’ They laughed, and the priest went to the door.

It was not the enemy but two men of Damour who had fled the town and had seen the white flag from the seashore. They had come back to warn them that it would not help to raise a flag. ‘We raised a flag in front of Our Lady, and they shot at us.’

Again they discussed what could be done. The priest told them that one thing they must do, although it was ‘impossible’, was to pray for the forgiveness of those who were coming to kill them. As they prayed, two of the young defenders of the town who had also seen the flag walked in and said, ‘Run to the seashore now, and we will cover you.

The two youths stood in front of the church and shot in the direction from which the fedayeen were firing. It took ten minutes for all the people in the church to leave the town. All 500 got away except one old man who said he could not walk and would prefer to die in front of his own house. He was not killed. Father Labaky found him weeks later in a PLO prison, and heard what had happened after they left.

A few minutes after they had gone, ‘the PLO came and bombed the church without entering it. They kicked open the door and threw in the grenades.’ They would all have been killed had they stayed.

The priest led his flock along the shore to the palace of Camille Chamoun. But when they got there they found it had already been sacked and partly burnt. They found shelter, however, in the palace of a Muslim, who ‘did not agree with the Palestinians’, and then got into small boats Which took them out to a bigger boat, in which they sailed to Jounieh. ‘One poor woman had to give birth to her baby in the little open boat on the rough winter sea.’

In all, 582 people were killed in the storming of Damour. Father Labaky went back with the Red Cross to bury them. Many of the bodies had been dismembered, so they had to count the heads to number the dead. Three of the men they found had had their genitals cut off and stuffed into their mouths.

The horror did not end there, the old Christian cemetery was also destroyed, coffins were dug up, the dead robbed, vaults opened, and bodies and skeletons thrown across the grave yard. Damour was then transformed into a stronghold of Fatah and the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). The ruined town became one of the main PLO centres for the promotion of international terrorism. The Church of St Elias was used as a repair garage for PLO vehicles and also as a range for shooting-practice with targets painted on the eastern wall of the nave.

The commander of the combined forces which descended on Damour on 23 January 1976 was Zuhayr Muhsin, chief of al-Sa’iqa, known since then throughout Christian Lebanon as 'the Butcher of Damour'. He was assassinated on 15 July 1979 at Cannes in the South of France.


Post Script

I was sent the following email in November 2001:


Good morning,

I’m Elie from Damour, I do appreciate very much the publication of the

“The Massacre and Destruction of Damour” on you’re site.

In 1976, I was a young child and till now I still remember those horrifying days leaving our homes heading to Our lady of Damour church then Sainte Elie Church and finally to the Chamoon Sadiat castle, where we left in a cows cargo ship to Jounieh. Even my mother kept back, for remembering, the cloths we where wearing and it was the only thing we took with us.

We do lost 2 close relative in our family, they where fighting with hunting guns to protect us. Not mentioning the others relatives and neighbours massacred.

Father Mansour Labake, was very close to all the families in Damour.

He did celebrate the mass ceremony for the rebuilding of Our Lady church in 2000, and he’s supervising the reconstruction on the Our Lady and Sainte Elie churches.

We, my family, and me did returned to Damour a few years ago and reconstruct our burned home and we’re living there since.

I left Lebanon for a job opportunity that I hade but always in the hope that I might return as soon as possible to my lovely village, where all my cousins’ and uncles had returned or now rebuilding their houses.

Thank you again for this lovely memory page.

I’ll send the link of you’re site to all the friends I know.


Take care and God bless you all.


Elie

I was sent the following email in January 2002:



For the second time in 2 years I tumble into your website.

This time I was searching under Damour because of the recent event of the assassination of Mr. Hobeika.

I found your story of the event rather emotionally moving. I found Elie's response very sobering.

I used to live in Na'ama few kilometers to the North of Damour in 1975. I was a child of 3-4 years. We rented an appartment from a Maronite family. We were Sunni Moslems from Beirut again for nearly 600 yrs. In the Summer of 75 there was a lot of commotion and I remember one day when in the afternoon there was one street barrigade established by the phalangists. We were told they were looking for moslems and I believe they slaughtered a few that day. I think mom managed to call to Beirut and told dad not to come. On one other night. I think a battle broke between palestinians or leftists and the army off the shore of Naama. We had to run down to the Landlord. Again dad ws in beirut at work and could not come. Our Landlord asked grandma to remove her veil. and they hid us in one of the rooms. The next day he told my dad he can not protect a muslim family any more and we better leave. He told him that there were many spirited young men and teenagers and he can not protect 2 women and a child.

We left. I still miss all the childish stuff I used to do with my best friend Raymonda, who was a year or so older. The landlord's family visited us several times at our new residence in Beirut among our own "tribe". My parents who used to work at the Lebanese University helped the landlord's kids through the routine procedures. But then all of Naama was dislocated and I never heard of them later.

Decades later I became a physician and was leaving to the US. I went back to Naama. They said people were back. I did not know the place. The landmarks I knew were gone.

Eventually I knew what happened to the landlords family and understood Naama's new topography. However, I never had a chance to pay them a visit.

During the massacres of Sabra and Chatila I was in West Beirut and I do not want to narrate what happened.

It is said that the palastinians did the massacre at Damour to avenge Tel Zaatar, or Karantina or black saturday or some other nasty thing. And it is said that Hobeika did the massacre in Sabra and Chatila to avenge his people in Damour.

Well, the Messiah said he who taketh by the sword is taken by the sword.

I pity the nation. The way I see it. It was a nightmare that interrupted a sweet dream: One where I and raymonda and her sister and the neighbor's son were climbin trees and running fields and playing hide and seek behind the St Elias Church. One where we pull off the lemons from the tree and play in the brook and the sea shore. A dream which was interrupted by a nightmare that Raymonda and me can not be friends and that her father see us as a burden.

For what and why !

WHY DID WE DESTROY our home and why we insist on keeping the grudges. That I do not understand. Is it in the water of Lebanon that people who drinks its water become butchers may be. Remember this cursed water also quenches the thirst ot the neighboring holy-land and Syria. Yeah most of their water resources are from our underground

Pity the Levant altogether.

Mohammad

[nadine]

De VRT moest natuurlijk de trien Brigitte Herremans van Tampax Christi weeral uitnodigen om over Harry Fat te spreken. Die troep had vroeger geschreven op de site van 11.11.11 dat de zelfmoordaanslagen maar een "fait divers" zijn.

Ze heeft zich wel ingehouden om het bij tamPax Christi ingebakken antisemitisme niet tot het uiterste te drijven zoals in hun brochure om antisemitisme in het onderwijs te ontwikkelen. Daarin staat ook oa:
een voor Israël aanvaardbare (lees omkoopbare) premier ....

in de reinste stijl van de protocollen van Zion en Mein Kampf; en dat noemt zich progressistisch...
en dan nog zonder het negationnistisch karakter van dezelfde brochure te vermelden. (opgesteld met dank aan Vogels en Boutmans en geld van de Vlaamse gemeenschap)

[nadine]

Nog een echte biographie over Harry Fatje, en dan zijn ze nog Damour vergeten...

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.' [For more on the failure of Oslo, see HonestReporting's documentary film, Relentless.]

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.'

[For more on the Arafat-Al Aqsa connection, click here.]

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 his burial is expected to occur.

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?

This article can also be read at: http://www.honestreporting.com/artic..._1929-2004.asp

[neruda]

Goed zo Nadine , nu het vuil tekstwerk van Sharon waarvan ik de meeste hiervan bespaar, ok ? Of mag je niet ?8)

[nadine]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door neruda

Goed zo Nadine , nu het vuil tekstwerk van Sharon waarvan ik de meeste hiervan bespaar, ok ? Of mag je niet ?8)

Omdat nog een van je helden, Arafat naast Castro, Stalin en Pol Pot, die duidelijk ook een massamoordenaar is voel je je in je hemd gezet en tracht je de aandacht af te leiden van de genocide van Damour en Ma'alot waar het toch echt om gaat als men de heldendaden van Arafat wil herinneren.

[k9]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Joriske

Arafat was een complex persoon. Hij personifieerde zonder meer de bestrevingen van het Palestijnse volk. Zijn grootste moment was de handdruk met Rabin en Perez op het gazon van het Witte Huis in 1993. Zijn laagste moment was het torpederen van de Oslo-vredesakkoorden in Camp David in 2000. Hopelijk gaat er zich nu wat roeren in het Midden-Oosten.

Beide waren hoogtepunten enkel omdat hij de rest van zijn leven terrorist was.

Oslo was enkel mogelijk omdat aafat zich vergist had in de 1e golfoorlog . PLots was hij het overgrote deel van zijn steun kwijt het enige wat hij dus kon doen was vrede beginnen sluiten. In 2000 zag de wereld hoe hij echt was: nog steeds in niks anders geintreseerd als de vernietiging van israeL

[jOOSt]

Arrafat, de palestijnen, de joden, Israel, het is allemaal één pot nat.

[neruda]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door nadine

Omdat nog een van je helden, Arafat naast Castro, Stalin en Pol Pot, die duidelijk ook een massamoordenaar is voel je je in je hemd gezet en tracht je de aandacht af te leiden van de genocide van Damour en Ma'alot waar het toch echt om gaat als men de heldendaden van Arafat wil herinneren.

Yeah , yeah , we weten het al...we kennen u ook ondertts en klasseer ook onder uitschot....maar inderdaad ik maak mijn woorden niet vuil aan uw gespuis...

[Gertj3]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door nadine

Omdat nog een van je helden, Arafat naast Castro, Stalin en Pol Pot, die duidelijk ook een massamoordenaar is voel je je in je hemd gezet en tracht je de aandacht af te leiden van de genocide van Damour en Ma'alot waar het toch echt om gaat als men de heldendaden van Arafat wil herinneren.

Hoi iedereen,

Zoals ik gisteren al zei vind ik het niet juist dat men hier op het forum altijd maar 1 man verwijt van de vele doden in het midden oosten en dat is Arafat!

Nu voor mij is Sharon ook geen heilig manneke! laat staan hij is een oorlogsman!

Hoe schijnheilig hij zich gisteren voordeed voor zijn reactie over de dood van Arafat!

Hoeveel doden heeft Sharon op zijn geweten? daar word geen woord over gerept! op dit Forum!

Maar Arafat dat is de schuldige waarom? Omdat het een moslim is? of omdat hij voor zijn volk opkwam? !

Neen omdat jullie alleen maar een hekel hebben aan de moslims en de mensen die geloven in de islam maar je doet maar zo verder hoor voor mij nog een reden om niet voor het blok te moeten stemmen

[Chipie]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Gertj3

Waar haal je die bewijzen van zijn vrouw haar rekening?

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door CHIPIE

Dat is een (oeroud) publiek geheim... Hopelijk zal dat kortelings wel uitgeklaard worden.

Normaal leeft een leider voor zijn volk, Gert, en het volk niet voor zijn leider ...

Hi Gert,

Deze morgen heb ik om 7.30 u op Radio1 vernomen dat in het Nieuwsblad vermeld wordt dat Arafat 1 miljard euro (40 miljard BF) EU-steun ergers geparkeerd had waar de Palestijnse bevolking geen 'voordeel' van had...
Op deze krant zouden ze U waarschijnlijk wel nader kunnen inlichtingen (die gaat toch zo maar niet de eerste de beste kwakkel verspreiden?).

Misschien kunt U ook vragen hoe het mogelijk is dat de EU zo maar onze duurverdiende centen uitdeelt (dus zonder garanties dat het geld gebruikt wordt waarvoor het wordt gegeven).

Groetjes

[Gertj3]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door CHIPIE

Hi Gert,

Deze morgen heb ik om 7.30 u op Radio1 vernomen dat in het Nieuwsblad vermeld wordt dat Arafat 1 miljard euro (40 miljard BF) EU-steun ergers geparkeerd had waar de Palestijnse bevolking geen 'voordeel' van had...
Op deze krant zouden ze U waarschijnlijk wel nader kunnen inlichtingen (die gaat toch zo maar niet de eerste de beste kwakkel verspreiden?).

Misschien kunt U ook vragen hoe het mogelijk is dat de EU zo maar onze duurverdiende centen uitdeelt (dus zonder garanties dat het geld gebruikt wordt waarvoor het wordt gegeven).

Groetjes

Ok ik zal het eens lezen en proberen op het forum te zetten

[Tenonder]

Beste Neruda, Obiwan, Vlaamse Leeuw,

Als reactie over een eenvoudige opmerking over oorzaak/gevolg inzake Intifada/Sharon reageert u gezamenlijk met een boekenkast aan argumenten. Hierop te reageren vergt allicht tien boekenkasten, waarop u me zult bedelven onder een ware berg aan boekenkasten en iedere discussie zult smoren in het geheel van de geschiedenis. Een escalatie van argumenten als het ware, zoals er in Israel/Palestina een escalatie aan geweld heeft plaatsgehad.

Evenwel betwist ik de aangedragen argumenten niet, maar ontwaar hierin een patroon dat ik wil vergelijken met een trap: de ene trede volgt op de andere, reactie en tegenreactie, sommige treden relatief laag, andere weer hoog. Maar al met al rijst men gestaag hoger - en alles rijst hoger, het geweld, de uitzichtloosheid, de Palestijnse ellende, de Israelische verbetenheid.

Ik merkte op dat de Intifada vooraf ging aan de verkiezing van Sharon. Een belangrijke correctie, want het betekent de verwisseling van een hoge met een lage trede in de trap die ik als metafoor gebruik. De hogere trede is het uitbreken van de Intifada, de lagere trede de verkiezing van Sharon. De zaken omgekeerd voorstellen, leidt ertoe dat de verkiezing van Sharon een relatief hogere trede wordt, terwijl de uitbraak van de Intifada een relatief lagere stap wordt. En zo wordt de enormiteit van de vergissing die de Palestijnen begingen met het uitroepen van de Intifada enigszins miskent.

Want dat is de hoogste trede geweest, de radicaalste breuk met het vredesproces. En verre van wat misschien gedacht wordt, het begin van de Intifada was geen spontaan volksprotest. Integendeel, de Palestijnse leiders hebben deze maandenlang voorbereid, hij was onvermijdelijk, het enige was het wachten op een gefantaseerde aanleiding. Die men vond in het bezoek van Sharon aan de Tempelberg.

Je zou dit kunnen vergelijken met de Amerikaanse aanval op Irak: lang voorbereid, onvermijdelijk geworden, onnozele aanleiding ter rechtvaardiging. Het idee dat met geweld de diplomatieke verwikkelingen afgeschud, en de eigen wensen gerealiseerd zouden worden. Met als resultaat dat het uitkomen van de eigen wensen verder weg is dan ooit, en de hele zaak smoort in een uitzichtloos bloedbad. Niets gewonnen, veel verloren.

Want de Intifada is de grootste ramp geweest die de Palestijnen over zich konden afroepen. Het daarvoor bestaande vredesproces had zijn bezwaren, de uitkomsten waren niet ideaal, maar toch alleszins verre te prefereren boven de huidige toestand. Ga toch na: duizenden slachtoffers, de uitzichtloosheid groter dan ooit, de Israeli's vastberadener dan ooit, Arafat nooit meer welkom in het Witte Huis (nou ja, blame Bush als je wilt), en inplaats van een onafhankelijke staat te hebben (hoe onvolledig ook) zitten de Palestijnen nu opgesloten op geringer territorium dan daarvoor, met dan nog een enorm hek eromheen. Vrede verder weg dan ooit, misere groter dan ooit, nou ze kunnen worden gefeliciteerd. In de ranglijst van meest mislukte projecten aller tijden zou de Intifada niet slecht scoren. Het Palestijnse volk kan collectief een Darwin-award worden toegekend, om het zeer cynisch te verwoorden.

Althans, zou de Intifada een spontane uitbraak van volkswoede zijn geweest, inplaats van een nauwgezet voorbereide verandering van strategie: het opblazen van de onderhandelingen, in een poging om met nietsontziend geweld zijn zin te krijgen. Ernstige vergissing, en Arafat persoonlijk aan te rekenen.

Voil�*. Ik betwist uw argumenten niet, maar verschil slechts in mening over wie de grootste fouten heeft begaan. Volgens mij zijn dat dus de Palestijnen, en ik zou zover willen gaan te beweren dat deze hun huidige ellende voor misschien wel 70% uitsluitend aan zichzelf en hun leiders te danken hebben. En dat is erg triest.

[nadine]

Hoe het palestijnse volk helpen?

Yasser Arafat's widow, Suha, is expected to receive a sum of $22 million a
year out of the Palestinian Authority budget, according to the Italian
newspaper Corriere De La Serra.

The paper said Suha reached an agreement about the money during a meeting
with Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO's newly elected chairman, who visited while she
was staying next to her husband's bed in the French military hospital
outside Paris.
It said Abbas personally promised Suha that she would receive $22 million a
year to cover her expenses in Paris. The paper noted that in July Arafat
transferred to his wife $11 million to cover her living costs for the first
six months of the year.

Abbas and the Palestinian leadership were forced to strike the deal with
Suha after she refused to allow them to visit her husband in hospital.

The Palestinian leaders reached the conclusion that it would be better to
make a deal with her in order to solve the crisis surrounding Arafat's
possessions and secret bank accounts.

According to Palestinian officials, the money that Suha is expected to
receive will come from secret accounts held by Arafat and his cronies in
various countries. They estimated that at least $4 billion were being held
in these secret accounts.

Om dat financieel gat van 22 M$ per jaar te dekken zal de EU nog wat meer geld geven en zullen 11.11.11, tamPax Christi, en anderen weer aan onze deuren komen bedelen.

[neruda]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door nadine

Hoe het palestijnse volk helpen?
Om dat financieel gat van 22 M$ per jaar te dekken zal de EU nog wat meer geld geven en zullen 11.11.11, tamPax Christi, en anderen weer aan onze deuren komen bedelen.

Je doet toch enige pogingen om mij te verleiden in het openbreken van mijn mond ivm onze Sharon..maar ik zal dit niet doen..alhoewel ik het verhaal van de corrupte zak van Sharon en zoontje ook niet erg rooskleurig klinkt...neueueuh..laat maar...8)

[nadine]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door neruda

Je doet toch enige pogingen om mij te verleiden in het openbreken van mijn mond ivm onze Sharon..maar ik zal dit niet doen..alhoewel ik het verhaal van de corrupte zak van Sharon en zoontje ook niet erg rooskleurig klinkt...neueueuh..laat maar...8)

Ha, zijt gij de advokaat van de Israelische democratie dat ge weer insiders' informatie hebt.
Wel vriendelijk van jou dat je Eretz Israël wil helpen tegen de corruptie. Om wat ervaring op te doen kan je misschien hier al beginnen met Delcroix, Claeys, Mathot, Moureaux, Spitaels, enz... (de lijst zou wel zeer lang kunnen uitgebreid worden).

[Gertj3]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door nadine

Ha, zijt gij de advokaat van de Israelische democratie dat ge weer insiders' informatie hebt.
Wel vriendelijk van jou dat je Eretz Israël wil helpen tegen de corruptie. Om wat ervaring op te doen kan je misschien hier al beginnen met Delcroix, Claeys, Mathot, Moureaux, Spitaels, enz... (de lijst zou wel zeer lang kunnen uitgebreid worden).

Delcroix hoort niet in dit lijstje want da is ne CD&v'er de anderen zijn allemaal ps'ers en ne sp.A 'er

[Chipie]

Citaat:
Oorspronkelijk bericht door nadine
Hoe het palestijnse volk helpen?
Om dat financieel gat van 22 M$ per jaar te dekken zal de EU nog wat meer geld geven en zullen 11.11.11, tamPax Christi, en anderen weer aan onze deuren komen bedelen.

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door neruda

Je doet toch enige pogingen om mij te verleiden in het openbreken van mijn mond ivm onze Sharon..maar ik zal dit niet doen..alhoewel ik het verhaal van de corrupte zak van Sharon en zoontje ook niet erg rooskleurig klinkt...neueueuh..laat maar...8)

Neruda, probeer eens een antwoord te geven op de door Nadine gestelde vraag (over Sharon kunt U later verder gaan)...

En mag ik bijkomende vragen stellen?:
"Vindt U het persoonlijk 'mooi' dat het geld van de EU (dus uw en mijn geld) dat moest dienen voor het algemeen belang van de arme Palestijnen voor een groot gedeelte 'die' bestemming gekregen heeft?"

"Vindt U dat er een onderzoek moet ingesteld worden hoe het in godsnaam mogelijk is dat het geld van de EU zo werd beheerd? Wie is daarvoor verantwoordelijk?".

Of interesseert het U allemaal niet...

Dank U

[Westland New Post]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door PollyCorrect

Bye Bye Fat Harry.

Ik heb je altijd een engerd gevonden, maar de laatste jaren was je ook nog pathetisch, met je megalomane blik en je zielige handkusjes en dan die kooplustige blonde slet in Parijs, je was een triest figuur. Maar het ergste is natuurlijk dat je alleen bijgedragen hebt tot het naar de verdommenis helpen van je volk en dood en verderf zaaien, want daarvoor ben je een wereldwijd symbool geworden. Vliegtuigen kapen, sportlui op de Olympische Spelen laten vermoorden, kinderen aanleren om zich te laten opblazen als martelaren... wat een heldendaden.

Verder geloof ik van die hele Allah Kakbar geen moer. Die mensen zijn helemaal niet gelovig.
Mensen zoals jij, je Fatah, je Hezbollah en al die andere ellende, hebben van 'religie' een oorlog gemaakt, en wereldwijd heb jij daaraan meegeholpen. Dat bv. Theo Van Gogh in een beschaafd land als Nederland vermoord is kunnen worden, daar heb jij een flink steentje toe bijgedragen.

Haat gezaaid over de wereld, racisme, antisemitisme, leugens, corruptie en moslimextremisme, dat je daarvoor allemaal berecht moge worden.

Het niveau van burgerlijk-rechts gaat er wéér op vooruit

[neruda]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door CHIPIE

Citaat:
Oorspronkelijk bericht door nadine
Hoe het palestijnse volk helpen?
Om dat financieel gat van 22 M$ per jaar te dekken zal de EU nog wat meer geld geven en zullen 11.11.11, tamPax Christi, en anderen weer aan onze deuren komen bedelen.


Neruda, probeer eens een antwoord te geven op de door Nadine gestelde vraag (over Sharon kunt U later verder gaan)...

En mag ik bijkomende vragen stellen?:
"Vindt U het persoonlijk 'mooi' dat het geld van de EU (dus uw en mijn geld) dat moest dienen voor het algemeen belang van de arme Palestijnen voor een groot gedeelte 'die' bestemming gekregen heeft?"

"Vindt U dat er een onderzoek moet ingesteld worden hoe het in godsnaam mogelijk is dat het geld van de EU zo werd beheerd? Wie is daarvoor verantwoordelijk?".

Of interesseert het U allemaal niet...

Dank U

Er zijn voldoende rapporten die het tegenovergestelde beweren en ik bekijk Nadine's anti-Palestijnse propaganda met een korreltje zout en met veel ongeloof gezien we al genoeg gezien hebben van haar eenzijdige standpunten over het Midden-Oosten.Daarom doe ik ook geen moeite om het Sharon verhaal met al zijn massamoorden en corruptie hier op deze forum neer te leggen.
Maaar ,moet eerlijk toegeven gezien Arafat's luxueuse leventje dat hij heel zijn leven heeft gehad , in zijn 20 paleizen , met 10 vrouwen rondom hem , zijn corrupte leventje , zijn onderdrukking op eigen volk die tegelijktijd te lijden heeft aan armoede wel erg begin te geloven in Nadine's Zionistische persartikeltjes...8)
...
..komaan hé , Chipie ..niet zeveren , ok ?