ARAFAT COMETH ONCE AGAIN

MID-EAST REALITIES - Washington - 4-19-2000:  Arafat comes to Washington again in a few days.
He's been summoned by those who now hand out his money, supply his guns, repress those who oppose him, listen to his phone, and make it possible for the Chairman and his VIP group to maintain control over the Palestinian people.

The big push is on for a "final" settlement.  The Israelis and Americans are quite desperate to get Arafat to sign it -- no one else both could and would.  The big pressure is on. A way to make it possible for Arafat to get away with what he himself spent most of his life calling treasonous is now being pursued vigorously.  Bill Clinton really doesn't want to have his Middle East approach unveiled for the deception it has always been.  Northern Ireland unraveling is enough; but that's small potatoes in comparison to the "new world order" in the Middle East!

About 20 percent of what was once Palestine not that long ago -- even that divided into zones and mangled with settlements and by-pass roads -- is going to be called a "State".  Abu Dis is going to be called "Jerusalem".  Arafat is going to be called "President".  Millions of refugees are going to be told they have to forget the past, some can come visit the reservations (for that's a more apt term in this case than "State), some can have a bit of "compensation", none can enter Israel, which is of course Palestine where most came from.  And not that long ago really.

So in the days ahead we will look closely at the Arafat regime reminding everyone what it is and what it is not and why it is.  This MER Editorial from three years:
 

MER EDITORIAL:
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            A WEEK OF BEHIND-THE-SCENES MANUEVERING

          ARAFAT, CIA, SHINBET WORKING CLOSELY TOGETHER

[Washington, 4/12/97 - MID-EAST REALITIES Editorial]
Joint US-Israeli efforts to quash the latest "violence" and "rioting" and still further divide the Palestinians and the Arabs from each other are frantically proceeding -- mostly behind the scenes of course.
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What is going on in public is once again primarily for public relations purposes -- just like during all those years of State Department negotiations which Oslo turned on their head.
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Behind the scenes the Palestinian Authority's screws are being turned ever further, even while all sides in the region continue to arm and prepare for future confrontation. With his monies dependent on U.S. and Israeli giving, and with his rule dependent on the monies and the "support" it can buy, Arafat is essentially cornered and is likely to be pulled apart as the future unfolds.
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Such, of course, may well have been the Israeli intention all along -- end the Intifada, discredit Arafat and destroy the PLO, imprison and demoralize the Palestinian population, manipulate world public opinion, push the U.N. out of matters realting to Israel as much as possible, control the policies of the USA as much as possible, penetrate the Arab world with economic, intelligence, and even military ties. In short: control and dominate the region with American help and with increasing interaction with the ever-more-fearful Arab "client-regimes"
of the area -- especially the Hashemites of Jordan, the al Saud's in Saudi Arabia, and the
quasi-military government of Egypt.
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The main result of Netanyahu's recent lightning visit to the U.S., coupled with that of the
long-collaborating Hashemite King of Jordan, was to come up with ways to further twist Arafat into complying with the role he accepted in the Oslo and Cairo agreements of recent years.
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Arafat, and the "Palestinian Authority" he has established with American and Israeli assistance
-- including the recently discovered secret $150 million bank account in Tel Aviv for flight into exile should tha prove necessary -- are continually being forced to comply with the unenviable role of policing Palestinian areas (call them "autonomous" rather than "ghettos") and repressing all Palestinian opposition (call it "terrorism" rather than "fighting occupation"). No matter what Arafat says in public, the underlying realities of the nearly impossible position he has allowed his people to be cornered into continually causes crisis in the misnomered "peace process".
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Among other specific things, Arafat has been forced in the past week to promise once again that he would take still further steps to actively work with Israel against "terrorism". Helping the Israelis round up some of the Hamas cells in 1997 is reminiscent of the help provided a long year and a half ago to assassinate "the Engineer" in Gaza, even though Arafat then turned right around and felt compelled to attend the massive funeral.
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"Security Coordination between Israel and the Palestinians has been Renewed - following a secret meeting between the head of the Shabak and Yasser Arafat" was the front-page headline in Israel's largest circulation paper, Yediot Acharonot, a few days ago.
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In addition, it has also leaked out that the head of the CIA in Tel Aviv recently summoned three of the PA's top "security" chiefs to a meeting which included the head of Israeli intelligence earlier in the week.  With these things already known, imagine what must be going on that isn't yet known!
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Additionally it is believed that Netanyahu made it quite clear to Bill Clinton during their private meeting in Washington that the Israelis will not be deterred from implimenting their interpretation of Oslo -- which in fairness to the Israelis is far closer to the actual text of the agreements as signed than is the PA interpretation. The surrender nature of the Oslo and Cairo texts was in fact the major reason persons such as Edward Said immediately began harshly criticizing what Arafat had done, even to the extent of publicly labeling him a "collaborator". Now the veracity of the critics is becoming more undeniable, hence the attempt by Arafat to pretend that the agreements say something other than what they do.
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Furthermore, among the behind-the-scenes realities are that the Israelis have enough blackmail capabilities against the Clinton Administration -- the most Israeli-infiltrated and Israeli-oriented government in American history -- to assure themselves that no serious U.S. pressure will ever be applied come what may.
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All the talk in the press about "saving the Peace Process," coupled with the spate of newspaper
statesments from various Jewish and Arab groups funded by their respective sides, are aimed in the end to once again pressure and trick the Palestinians into once again buying into the American-sponsored "peace process".
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Yet right from the start -- back in the tension period of the post-Gulf War -- the so-called "peace process" was always in reality a "domination process". It was always designed, and continues to have as its primary purpose, to end the Intifada by exhausting and demoralizing the Palestinians, while at the same time consolidating the hold of the American-sponsored Arab "client-regimes" in the region. And it continues to have as its primary purpose portraying the Americans as "even-handed" and bent on "peace", when in fact it is precisely the Americans who make possible Israeli expansion, Palestinian subjugation, and regional chaos.
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Expect more crisis and violence ahead as what is essentially a multi-tentacled plot to destroy the Palestinian quest for true independence and real Statehood, entrench the Arab "client-regimes", and assure U.S. and Israeli  regional domination marches foreward.         MAB
 
 
 

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