Tuesday is the fourth anniversary of the death of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) founder Yasser Arafat, and an occasion for more Hamas-Fatah tensions.

Hamas, which took over control of Gaza from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in a violent coup in the summer of 2007, has announced that it will not allow public memorial ceremonies for Arafat.  Last year, the Arafat memorial, attended by many tens of thousands, led to Fatah-Hamas violence and several deaths.

Fatah has condemned the ban, to no avail.  Hamas has already arrested several Fatah activists suspected of organizing gatherings and/or attacks.

The central memorial ceremony for Arafat is being held in Ramallah, and smaller ones are scheduled in other towns and cities. In addition, a "minute of silence" is to be observed at noon throughout the Palestinian Authority in memory of the fallen leader.

Nasser Al-Kidweh, Arafat's nephew and the head of the Arafat Legacy Institute, says that his uncle was definitely poisoned, and "proof of this will emerge within a year, or two years at most."  Al-Kidweh was interviewed by the French news agency AFP. His claim has often been debunked by medical experts. 

Father of Modern Terrorism

Considered the founder of the modern-day terrorism used so widely by Moslems, Arafat began a wave of murder against Jewish and other targets around the world shortly after taking control of the PLO in 1968-9.  Among the murderous exploits he inspired were the following:

* the Lod Airport Massacre (May 1972), carried out by three Japanese Red Army terrorists in an operation planned and supported by PLO faction PFLP-GC, killing 26 and wounding 78.

* the Munich Olympics slaughter (September 1972), in which eleven Israeli athletes were killed.

* the Maalot massacre (May 1974) in which a school building was taken over while children from Tzfat on a school trip were sleeping there.  Three teachers and 22 schoolchildren were murdered.

* the Savoy Hotel attack (March 1975) near Tel Aviv, in which seven hostages and two soldiers were killed after Fatah terrorists landed on the beach and seized the hotel.

* the Nahariya/Avivim school bus attack (May 1970).  Palestinian terrorists crossed the border from Lebanon, ambushed the bus with a barrage of gunfire, murdered 12 children and 3 adults, and left several others crippled.

* the Kiryat Shmonah apartment building attack (April 1974), in which Palestinian terrorists penetrated the northern Israel border town, entered an apartment building on Yehuda HaLevy St. and killed all 18 residents they found there, including 9 children.

* the Coastal Road bus hijacking (March 1978), in which 11 Fatah terrorists ,who infiltrated by sea, killed a photographer and a taxi driver and hijacked a bus filled with adults and many children.  The terrorists fired on passing cars from the bus, and when they were finally stopped, they began firing missiles.  The massacre left 35 people dead and 100 wounded.

* the brutal murder of three U.S. diplomats held hostage in Khartoum, Sudan (March 1973).  The terrorists demanded the release of Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian assassin of Robert F. Kennedy.  Arafat was recorded as having given the execution orders.

* the Achille Lauro hijacking of a cruise ship (October 1985), in which wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer, 69, was shot and thrown overboard into the ocean. 

* Internationally, in 1972 alone, PLO groups blew up a West German electricity plant, a Dutch gas plant and an oil refinery in Trieste, Italy.  In 1975, the presence of Arafat and his 15,000-strong army in Lebanon triggered a bloody civil war that raged on for nearly two decades, costing 40,000 lives.

Arafat was banished from Jordan to Lebanon in 1970 in the course of a violent war against the PLO by King Hussein, and from Lebanon to Tunis in 1982 following the Peace for Galilee War.  He orchestrated the first "intifada," beginning in 1987, from Tunis, though it had supposedly started spontaneously. 

In 1994, following the Oslo Accords, Arafat was allowed to enter Judea, Samaria and Gaza.  Israel essentially forbade him from leaving Ramallah for the last three years of his life.  Palestinian terrorists, funded and encouraged by the "statesman" Arafat, have murdered over 1,300 Israelis since the signing of the Oslo Agreement.