Shortly after the signing of the Oslo accords between Israel and the PLO in 1993, the Jerusalem Post ran a cartoon that depicted a critical aspect of those accords which has rarely been discussed much less acknowledged. In the cartoon, a smiling Yasser Arafat was sitting upright on a stretcher giving a “V” sign. The stretcher bearers were Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.
As expected, the so-called peace talks farce has ended in disarray with all parties utterly discredited again.Do they never learn? Expect more acrobatics and slapstick if the same circus clowns remain in the ring.
A new act is badly needed. Let this be the moment in history when world leaders finally stop talking poppycock about peace in relation to the Holy Land, and start talking justice.
In 1988 Yasser Arafat declared independence for Palestine based upon the notion of two states living in peace in historic Palestine. The border between those two states was to be set roughly at the armistice line established at the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The Palestinian state’s capital was to be located in East Jerusalem.
Only the other day, Benjamin Netanyahu earned a small note of immortality when he said the peace talks were ended by the new arrangements between the Palestine Authority and Hamas: Netanyahu’s announcement bundled a record number of lies into one mouthful of words. There, of course, never was anything properly called peace talks with Israel. There has been only a long series of closed-door personal, and security-scrambled telephonic, exchanges with America’s superbly ineffectual John Kerry, exchanges in which the Palestinians played virtually no role and in which Mr.
When late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was confined by Israeli soldiers to his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Mohammed Dahlan reigned supreme. As perhaps the most powerful and effective member of the ‘Gang of Five’, he managed the affairs of the ruling Fatah movement, coordinated with Israel regarding matters of security, and even wheeled and dealed in issues of regional and international affairs.
On the face of it that’s a silly question and the speculation it represents – that Palestinian “President” Abbas could be replaced by an Israeli agent or asset – is not worthy of discussion. But before dismissing it readers might do what I did and consider two things.
The first is that Mohammed Dahlan, formerly one of the most powerful Fatah leaders and almost certainly the one who administered for Israel the polonium that killed Arafat, is now putting a big effort into getting rid of Abbas by one means or another and replacing him with – guess who? – himself.
MEMO | March 13, 2014
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas waged an unprecedented attack on Wednesday against ousted Fatah member Mohammed Dahlan, accusing him of assassinating several key Palestinian figures, including the late President Yasser Arafat.
It is easy to forget, with eulogies casting him as the unexpected “peace-maker”, that for most of his long military and political career Ariel Sharon was known simply as The Bulldozer. That is certainly how he will be remembered by Palestinians.
His death was announced on Israeli army radio on Saturday. He was 85 years old and had been comatose since 2006.
Graphic: Coalition For a Free Palestine (South Africa)
John Chuckman
The press has echoed for days with admiration for Nelson Mandela and his genuinely heroic fight against the apartheid government of South Africa. There have been many recollections of the brutal quality of that government, all perhaps carrying an unstated sense of how could people live that way?
Al-Akhbar | December 5, 2013
A French report ruling out poisoning in Yasser Arafat’s 2004 death has a glaring inconsistency, the co-author of a Swiss probe said Thursday, sticking by his team’s conclusion that the Palestinian leader was likely killed.
