May 6, 1997
Yasir Arafat’s false claim that two recent attempted
Arab terrorist attacks on busloads of Israeli schoolchildren were actually
the work of Israel’s General Security Services (Shin Bet) “is a bizarre and
patently fraudulent attempt to distract attention from Arafat’s refusal to
keep his Oslo commitment to fight Arab terrorist groups,” said Morton A.
Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).
A Palestinian Arab prisoner who claimed to be a Shin Bet agent was
presented at a press conference organized by the PLO police in Gaza on May
4, 1997. The prisoner, Ibrahim Halabi, claimed that the Shin Bet recruited
him to carry out the attacks on the Israeli school buses, and gave him the
explosives.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman said the
allegation was “a fabrication,” and pointed out that such PLO claims “do
not reflect a serious intention to fight against terrorism.” (New York
Times, May 5, 1997)
Two Arab terrorists, armed with the bombs, stationed themselves
near bus stops at the Gaza Jewish towns of Kfar Darom and Netzarim on April
1, 1997. The bombs exploded prematurely, killing the bombers and 7 Arabs
in a passing taxi.
At the time, Yasir Arafat publicly presented a fabricated version
of the attacks, saying: “This morning an Israeli jeep opened fire on a taxi
in which one was killed and five were injured. What do you think will be
the reaction from our side? To control more and more and more? For any
pressure there is a reaction.” (CNN, April 2, 1997)
But Major-General Abdul Razeq Majaideh of the PLO Police and
Brigadier-General Saeb Ajez, PLO police commander for northern Gaza, when
asked about the first attack, told the Washington Post (April 2, 1997) that
the attack was an Arab suicide bombing. The Post also quoted
corroborating testimony by an Arab taxi driver, Ayesh Abu Rayda, and
two passengers, Khalil Abu Rouk and Issadin Abu Fayad.
The families of the two suicide bombers also confirmed that they
were members of the Islamic Jihad terrorist group. Awani Mahmoud
El-Sabarawi, uncle of bomber Anwar Ahmad El-Sabarawi, said the youth “was a
member of the Islamic Jihad…his friend Abdallah also belonged to the Islamic Jihad.” (Globes,
April 2, 1997) In addition, the Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported (April 2,
1997) that the type of bomb used in the Gaza attacks “was identical to the
one that blew up the Tel Aviv cafe on March 21.”
The Gaza attack lie is the latest in a long series of anti-Israel
fabrications that Arafat has circulated.
In this context, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said:
“A few months ago we were accused of burrowing a tunnel under the Al Aqsa
Mosque. A preposterous fabrication! It should have been thrown out by the
international community, thrown out by the international press. It was
given credence, this lie. I’m not going to accept this same kind of
approach again and again.” (Reuters News Agency, March 12, 1997).
ZOA president Klein said: “Yasir Arafat seems to have learned well
from other dictators, who understood that the bigger the lie, and the more
frequently it is repeated it, the more people will believe it.”
Other falsehoods circulated by Arafat and the PLO include:
-
“Allow me to remind you here of what the Israeli government is
intent upon doing–and that is digging a tunnel under the western wall of
Al Aqsa mosque.” (Yasir Arafat, speech to the Organization of the Islamic
Conference, in Islamabad, Pakistan, March 23, 1997) -
“Jerusalem is not a Jewish city, despite the biblical myth
implanted in some minds…There is no tangible evidence of Jewish existence
from the so-called ‘Temple Mount Era’…The location of the Temple Mount is
in question…it might be in Jericho or somewhere else.” (Walid M. Awad,
Director of Foreign Publications for the PLO’s Palestine Ministry of
Information, interviewed by the IMRA news agency, Dec.25, 1996.) -
“Abraham was neither Jewish nor a Hebrew, but was simply an
Iraqi. The Jews have no right to claim part of the Tomb of the Patriarchs
in Hebron, Abraham’s resting place, as a synagogue. Rather, the whole
building should be a mosque.” (Yasir Arafat, quoted in the Jerusalem
Report, Dec. 26, 1996) -
“The Palestinian Authority is now claiming that Rachel’s Tomb in
Bethlehem is the traditional tomb of the Cushite servant of
Mohammed.” (Ha’aretz, Oct.9, 1996) -
“That is not the Western Wall at all, but a Moslem shrine.”
(Yasir Arafat, quoted in Ma’ariv, Oct. 11, 1996) -
Regarding weapons in the hands of Arab terrorists, Arafat said,
“These weapons could be obtained only from high authorities with great
influence on the Israeli side.” (Jerusalem Post, March 22, 1996) -
“An unholy conspiracy of Israeli ‘fanatics’, who are members of
a shadowy group of ex-IDF people called ‘OAS’, and Moslem extremists were
behind suicide bombings, Palestinian Authority President
Yasser Arafat told foreign diplomats…Arafat is known to have said last
year, before Barak became foreign minister, that ‘Barak
is one of the big bosses of the OAS’…” (Jerusalem Post, Feb.27, 1996) -
“The people of Israel realize perfectly well that they have no
temples or ruins near Al Aqsa Mosque. According to the Koran, the people
of Israel lived somewhere to the west of Bethlehem…they were living in
Bethlehem and not in Jerusalem.” (Sheikh Ismail Jamal, the PLO’s Director
of the Islamic Wakf in Jericho, quoted in the Chicago Jewish Sentinel, May
18, 1995) -
Referring to the Arab terrorist attack in Beit Lid, in which 22
Israelis were killed, and other attacks in 1995, Arafat said, “I have
evidences that these terrorist activities have been done through
coordination between these fanatic Islamic groups and some elements on the
Israeli side.” (Washington Post, May 2, 1995) -
Arafat once “convened a conference of the international press to
claim that an imprint of an ancient Judean coin on the Israeli 10-agorot
coin was Israel’s imperialistic expansion map. This coin, he said, shows
that Israel plans to conquer Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and parts of Egypt and
Saudi Arabia.” (Jerusalem Post, Feb. 22, 1995) -
“PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, in interviews published yesterday,
accused IDF troops of aiding the spread of arms in the territories in a
plot to create chaos in Palestinian self-rule areas…’This weapons trade
is being carried out under the auspices of some Israeli officers in the
West Bank and Gaza. This is part of a wicked plan’…” (Jerusalem Post,
Feb. 18 & Feb. 19, 1994) -
“Israel has been using chemical weapons against Palestinians in
the territories for 27 months with the support of the U.S. It’s not tear
gas, it’s chemical weapons.” (Yasir Arafat, Jerusalem Post, April 1, 1990)
