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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
  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!
 
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