News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Palestinian Authority Arabs gathered in Ramallah on Wednesday to commemorate the five-year anniversary of the death of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman and chief terrorist Yasser Arafat. Thousands of flag-waving Arabs prepared to listen to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas laud his mentor, while PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters that "the moment of truth has arrived -- we have to be frank with the Palestinian people that after 18 years of talks we have failed to achieve a two-state solution. We have become convinced that Israel does not want a Palestinian state on lands it occupied in 1967."

Erekat's comments were referring to the regions of Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem that were formerly occupied by Jordan, when its forces attacked Israel together with Egypt and Syria in the 1967 Six Day War. Israel won the war that had been thrust upon its citizens by the surrounding Arab nations. As a result, Jerusalem was reunited under Israeli sovereignty, and Judea and Samaria was taken from Jordanian control.