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The Palestinian "Negotiators"
-
MER LIE of the WEEK
T
I M E T O S T O P
L I S T E N I N G
"MR. ARAFAT HAS DECIDED TO SEND THE
PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATORS WHO WERE
PRESENT IN WASHINGTON TO CAIRO FOR
TALKS WITH EGYPTIAN LEADERS ON WAYS
TO ALERT THE ARAB WORLD AND THE
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO THE
DIFFICULTIES IN THE PEACE PROCESS."
Statement from Yasser
Arafat's Office - 11/09/97
MER
- Washington - 1 December:
Arafat's "negotiators" are among the most compromised and defeated Palestinians
anywhere -- yet they continue to be sent far and wide from Cairo to Jeddah
to America.
Rarely have people who have failed so miserably, squandered so much political
and financial capital, and achieved such negative results, remained in
power and continued to claim they should be listened to. Only in
the still backward Arab world -- a world still full of "client regimes"
and extremes of bribery, corruption and mediocrity -- do Arab leaders who
have failed their people so badly over such long periods of time remain
in power and control.
One dignified person, Haidar Abdel-Shafi, the Chairman of the Palestinian
delegation in Madrid and in Washington, has had the good sense to resign
and save his personal reputation, if nothing else. He was used terribly
by Arafat, by the Americans, and by the Israelis. But at least finally
he realized his predicament, refused to even attend the White House "ceremony",
and has since even resigned from the Palestinian "Legislative Assembly"
realizing that it too was simply being used
and manipulated by Arafat, as well as by the Israelis and Americans, for
their own purposes, without having any real power or authority.
But the others -- including some of the best known, among them Hanan Ashrawi,
Feisal Husseini, Sari Nuseibah, Saeb Erakat -- have all allowed themselves
to continue to be terribly used enjoying all the travel and pocketing all
the rewards and under-the-table deals that come so miserably entangled
with the financial and political corruption of the "Peace Process".
Blaming it all on Netanyahu -- and conveniently pushing under the rug the
basic reality that Madrid and Oslo were already pregnant with today's predicament,
right from the beginning -- Arafat is now sending
his old crony team on more duplicitous missions to further mislead everyone
who will still listen to them.
We all should have stopped listening some time ago!