Peres Cross-Examined

I was there when former Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres spoke at the UCLA campus on October 14 as part of his national tour.

I went to the meeting to ask Mr. Peres whether he in fact said that Yasser Arafat deserved the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. But, before I had an opportunity to ask this question, Mr. Peres unequivocally announced that indeed he had said just that.

Mr. Peres, ever undaunted, said: "I think he deserved the Nobel Prize, first because he accepted the existence of the State of Israel, which no other [Arab] Palestinian leader had ever agreed to. Second, because he said he would abandon terrorism, which he did for a time. And third, because he agreed that peace would be based on the borders of 1967 and not 1948." (http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=5055)

Mr. Peres, I believe you are wrong. Please tell me who the Arab "Palestinian" leaders were prior to Arafat? Arafat is the only "Palestinian" leader I am aware of, since the Palestinian nationality was invented in 1969 with the PLO Charter.

Article 1 of the PLO Charter is still in effect today. It says: "Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the greater Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation." (http://www.pna.org/mininfo/key/charter.htm)

So if the "Palestinian" Arabs were and still are eternally bound to the greater Arab Nation, what gives them any special national status? They are simply Arabs who happen to be "occupying" what was formerly referred to as "Palestine".

Mr. Peres, did Arafat ever really abandon terrorism? And what do you mean by "for a time?" Does that mean for the first five minutes? The first few days?

And even when there was a lull in terrorism, the planning and plotting, the incitement and brainwashing by the Peace Prize winner continued.

Even Jack the Ripper took some time off.

Mr. Peres, I am afraid you either suffer from amnesia, or you simply would hate to give back the Peace Prize you share with Yitzhak Rabin and that terrorist and thug, Arafat.

Arafat and his clan never did and never will abandon the Arab World's mantra ?Itbach al-Yahood!? ("Slaughter the Jews"), which his uncle and mentor, Haj Amin al-Hussieni, taught them in the 1920s. One would be naive to believe otherwise.

Mr. Peres, you are not only insulting the victims of PLO terrorism and their families, but misleading everyone.

Here is some of what Arafat had to say:

"We, with the help of God, will meet next time in Jerusalem, because we are fighting in order to bring the victory to our prophets. Every baby, every child, every man, every woman, and every older person, and all the youngsters, we will sacrifice ourselves for our holy places, and we will establish the guard on them, and are prepared to give 70 of our martyrs for every martyr of theirs in this campaign, because this is our holy land. We will continue to fight..." ? Yasser Arafat, 18 December 2001, in a speech in Ramallah, two days after his "historical" speech in which he called ? in Arabic (under European pressure) ? for an end to suicide bombings and for a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. (Reported in Ma'ariv, http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=9345.)

In a meeting with Arab diplomats in January, 1996:

"We, the PLO, will concentrate all our efforts on splitting Israel psychologically into two camps. Within five years we will have six to seven million Arabs living on the West Bank and in Jerusalem. The PLO plans to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion; Jews won't want to live among Arabs."

In a speech to his Fatah movement in Gaza:

"...let us each commit one to another and let us commit ourselves before Allah and the Palestinian people that we shall lead the coming battle as we have led previous battles? They are afraid, but we are not. We cling to the oath and the promise. The Palestinian people are faithful to its oath, the one which we swore upon the first day when the initial shot was fired and the first of our martyrs fell. I must say these things so that you will know where, how, and in which direction our movement is heading. We are marching together to Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem." (Palestinian Television, August 5,1997; Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, August 6,1997.)

And if the above quotes by Arafat, who talks out of both sides of his mouth, are not enough, please review A Compendium of Hate: Palestinian Authority Anti-Semitism Since the Hebron Accord. Here is one quote:

"Israeli practices in many aspects are equal with, if not more brutal than, those practiced by occupying Nazi soldiers dealing with French-Dutch citizens during the Second World War." (PA Information Ministry press release, December 10, 1997; http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/2396/quotes/hate0.htm.)

Furthermore, as reported by the Australian Sun on November 29, 2003, Arafat has personally stolen over a billion dollars of the economic aid sent by Europe and America to the Palestinian Authority. According to Matthew Levitt, a former FBI analyst who tracks terrorism financing: "What has made it [the corruption] particularly egregious now is that it's not just lining pockets but financing terrorism as well, and we find that Arafat continues to pay the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in particular." (http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,8010804%5E401,00.html.)

Arafat never meant what he said when he recognized Israel. He lives by the tactics espoused in the Treaty of Hudaybiya. This is the Islamic "treachery tactic", to make peace with the enemy in order to gain time to regroup, first used by Muhammad, Islam?s prophet . For more about the Treaty of Hudaybiya, refer to http://dunamai.com/articles/Islam/lesson_of_alhudaybiyah.htm.

Is this the kind of man you so strongly believe deserves the Peace Prize?

And do you advise Israel to continue to negotiate with him and/or his ilk so that a Jewish nation can have a secure home in the land of their historical ancestors?

How wonderful: Arafat is willing to negotiate Israel back to the pre-'67 borders, but not all the way back to the pre-state, three-sectioned, 1947 borders. In other words, he's willing to have Israel self-destruct a bit slower.

Arafat said it very clearly in a November 1995 radio address: "The struggle will continue until all of Palestine is liberated."

You understand English, don't you, Mr. Peres?

Mr. Peres, your fellow Nobel Prize winner, Yasser Arafat, is nothing less than a war criminal of the first order. Col. Stanislav Lunev, the highest-ranking Soviet military intelligence officer ever to defect from Russia, gives an account of some of the crimes committed by Arafat (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/26/225105.shtm):

* He committed his first murder at age 20.

* He masterminded the biggest hijacking (four aircraft at once), the largest number of hostages (3,000 at one time), the largest ransom extorted ($5 million from Lufthansa) and the greatest number and variety of terrorist targets (40 civilian aircraft, 5 passenger ships, 30 embassies or diplomatic missions and schools).

* In 1972, Arafat was the one of the masterminds behind the massacre at the Munich Olympics.

* In 1982, he was the mastermind behind the murder of 242 U.S. Marines, blown to shreds in Lebanon.

* He is on record bragging about the most sadistic murders of one Belgian and two American diplomats in the Sudan in 1973.

* And, more recently, he has been behind nearly every suicide/homicide bombing and other callous, vicious attacks upon the Israeli people since the 1993 Oslo "Peace" Accord.

Had an alert Israeli public or military/police personnel not thwarted many of his planned attacks, the already staggering Israeli body count would be even higher. And what if the Karina A ship, loaded with 50 tons of Iranian weapons, had not been intercepted at sea? Or what if chemical weapons recently found in Jenin had made it onto a busy Jerusalem street? There is not a day that passes that I do not read about terror and murder being plotted or committed by Arab "Palestinians" against Israelis (http://www.idf.il/newsite/english/main.stm).

So how is it that you, knowing all this, still feel comfortable sharing a "Peace" Prize with a murderer of Jews?

Mr. Peres, it takes a great man to come up with brilliant ideas. Bringing Arafat back from the dead and making him a peace partner inside Israel, however, was not a brilliant idea.

And, Mr. Peres, it also takes a great man to admit he was wrong ? terribly wrong.

But perhaps, in view of the facts, you might swallow a bit of crow anyhow and see what happens.