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"News, Analysis & Commentary They Don't Want You to Know"
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For MER information: http://MiddleEast.Org
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ARAFAT IS TYRANT IN NOW
"DOUBLY OCCUPIED" TERRITORIES
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MER - This recent editorial
from a publication known as PALESTINE TIMES has come to our attention.
Those of you who get MER
regularly will note that the people at this publication clearly are themselves
reading MER, for some of the phrasing and concepts in their editorial come
practically verbatim from our own analysis and editorials.
Palestine Times may be
associated with Hamas -- we do not know and we have not had any association
with the publication. Even if so, after interviewing the Hamas leader Dr.
Musa Abu Marzook while he was imprisoned in New York and meeting with others
associated with the organization, it appears Hamas is a far more dedicated,
far more dignified, and far more dedicated group of Palestinian nationalists
than is Yasser Arafat's "Palestinian Authority".
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From PALESTINE TIMES:
Collaboration with Zionists
Arafat's only means of survival
Last month Arafat's self-rule authority revealed its
ugly face when leaders of the PA security services proved collaboration
with the Israeli occupation authorities which in turn led to the arrest
of a striking Hamas military cell said to be responsible for numerous attacks
on the Zionist occupation soldiers.
In his battle to survive,
Chairman Arafat has given in to the Israeli security dictation, making
his Authority an instrument in the hands of the Israeli Shin Bet security
service. The PA senior officials claim they have suspended security cooperation
with the Israelis following the decision made by the Israeli government
to proceed with the construction of the new Jewish settlement in Jabal
Abu Ghneim in occupied East Jerusalem. In fact, this "collaboration"
has not stopped given the simple fact that it is the only means of survival
for Chairman Arafat and his men (labeled by the Gazans as the "Tunisians")
who returned with Mr. Arafat to the homeland after having spent 11 years
in Tunisia. The Israelis, who suspended the final status negotiations with
the PLO, kept the door wide open for security cooperation with the PA's
security leaders who promised to suppress the Palestinian popular intifada
and to destroy the infrastructures of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad; a task
in which the Zionists have failed to achieve over the years of occupation.
Has Chairman Yasser Arafat
become the vassal of the Israeli state? Have the Palestinians living in
the West Bank and Gaza merely seen an exchange of harsh and cruel regimes?
Professor Edward Said,
the renowned Arab/American thinker, has repeatedly used the word "collaborator"
to portray Yasser Arafat. Dr. Nasser Aruri, a Professor of Political Science
at Southeastern Massachusetts University, publicly described the Palestinian
President as a "vassal." Dr. Haidar Abdul Shafi, former head
of the Palestinian negotiating team at Madrid and in Washington, has denounced
the Palestine Authority as a "terrible disaster" for the Palestinian
people. He said that the PA was created with American and Israeli arms
and money.
Despair and fear of the
PA continue to grow in the doubly occupied territories. Journalists and
newspapers have been intimidated by the PA and there is now a new form
of oppression for the Palestinian people.
Many Hamas leaders and members have been imprisoned by
the PA instead of Shin Bet, and it is no secret that brutal methods of
torture have been used to extract information from these prisoners and
that Palestinians have died as a result at the hands of their PA interrogators.
A Gazan merchant summarized
to Mr. David Hirst of the British Guardian his people's misery after the
coming of Mr. Arafat's retired 'resistants'. He said, "We live in
amazing, shameful times, but you should know that every revolution has
its fighters, thinkers and profiteers. Our fighters have been killed, our
thinkers assassinated, and all we have left are the profiteers."
Mr. Arafat has proved great
commitment to the secret provisions of the Oslo Accords regarding the security
"collaboration" with the Israelis and that the parties on which
he now completely dependssIsraelis and Americans are willing to ignore,
even encourage, his manifest corruption, as the British journalist recorded.
Arafat has come to light
as not only an oppressor but a dictator and tyrant as well. He also has
complete control over the budget and finances. Furthermore, after the signing
of the Peace Accords in Oslo in 1994, the living conditions of average
Palestinians have sharply deteriorated since the coming of the PA to the
so-called self-rule areas. There are the closures of the two huge concentration
camps of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the continued building of settlements,
and complete control of all aspects of Palestinian economy.
Israeli reports revealed
that Chairman Arafat has a secret account of more than $150 million in
the Israeli Leumi Bank in Tel Aviv. These funds, which Mr. Arafat uses
to buy off his rivals, are the taxes collected by the PA from the poor
Palestinians which only adds to their suffering.
It is all too clear that
Arafat's services have been bought and that he now serves the interests
of the Israeli government. For the Palestinian population, the oppression
continues; it is merely an exchange of oppressors in the now doubly occupied
territories.
[MER - Palestine Times can be found at www.Ptimes.com]