Zionist Organization of America press release, november 3, 1998
The chief of Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority Police
has compared the Wye Accord to a 7th-century peace treaty that Mohammed,
the founder of Islam, signed with an enemy tribe and then later tore up.
Speaking on official Palestinian Authority Television on October
30, 1998, PA Police Chief Col. Ghazi Jabali said:
“We wish to build an independent state and to build our nation —
even the Prophet Mohammed, may peace be upon him, accepted the
Khudaibiya agreement, which contained unjust conditions.”
Jabali was referring to the 10-year peace agreement signed by
Mohammed with the tribe of Koreish. After two years, Mohammed’s military
position improved, and he then tore up the agreement and slaughtered the
Koreishites.
Morton A. Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of
America, said:
“When Arafat and his senior aides compare the Oslo or Wye
Accords to the temporary truce signed by Mohammed, they are telling the
Palestinian Arabs that they don’t want peace, but continue to want the
destruction of Israel. This makes a mockery of all of Arafat’s agreements
with Israel, and the Clinton administration, as the sponsor of the
Israel-PA agreements, should publicly condemn Jabali’s statement and
demanded that Arafat immediately condemn it, as well.”
On numerous previous occasions, both Arafat and other senior PA
officials have assured Arab audiences that their treaties with Israel are
only temporary truces rather than genuine, permanent peace agreements,
citing as precedents the Khudaibiya agreement, the accord signed
by Salah a-Din with the Crusaders, and the PLO’s 1974 “Strategy of Phases.”
Salah a-Din was the Muslim leader who, after a cease fire, declared
a jihad against the Crusaders and conquered Jerusalem.
The “Strategy of Phases” was adopted by the PLO’s National Council
at its session in Cairo during June 1-8, 1974. Prior to the 1974 meeting,
the PLO’s position was that it would never accept anything but the
immediate destruction of Israel. At the 1974 meeting, the PLO decided to
seek Israel’s destruction in phases, by first establishing a small PLO
state, then later seeking to conquer the rest of Israel. Point #2 of its
10-point 1974 platform declared that the PLO should create “a national,
independent fighting authority on every part of the Palestinian land to be
liberated.” Point #8 explains that the “the Palestine national entity,
after it comes into existence,” will seek “to complete the liberation of
the entire Palestinian soil.”
In the Palestinian Arab newspaper Al Quds on May 10, 1998, Arafat
was asked:
“Do you feel sometimes that you made a mistake in agreeing to Oslo?”
Arafat replied:
“No…no. Allah’s messenger Mohammed accepted the
al-Khudaibiya peace treaty and Salah a-Din accepted the peace agreement
with Richard the Lion-Hearted.”
In an interview with Egyptian Orbit TV on April 18, 1998, Arafat
was asked about his decision to sign the Oslo accords. He replied:
“In 1974, at the Palestinian National Council meeting in Cairo, we passed
the decision to establish national Palestinian rule over any part of the land
of Palestine which is liberated.”
In that interview, Arafat also declared that the Oslo accords are
comparable to
“when the Prophet Mohammed made the Khudaibiya agreement…we
must learn from his steps…We respect agreements the way that the Prophet
Mohammed respected the agreements which he signed.”
Abdul Aziz Shaheen, the PA’s Minister of Supplies, told the
official PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on January 4, 1998:
“The Oslo accord was a preface for the Palestinian Authority and the
Palestinian Authority will be a preface for the Palestinian state which, in its turn,
will be a preface for the liberation of the entire Palestinian land.”
In an interview with the Palestinian Arab newspaper Al Ayyam on
January 1, 1998. Asked his view of the Oslo agreement, Arafat replied:
“Since the decision of the Palestinian National Council at its
12th meeting in 1974, the PLO has adopted the political solution of
establishing a National Authority over any territory from which the
occupation withdraws.”
Speaking in a mosque in Johannesburg, South Africa on May 10, 1994,
Arafat stated that the Oslo Accord was akin to the temporary truce between
Mohammed and the Koreish tribe:
“This agreement, I am not considering it
more than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Muhammad
and Koreish, and you remember that the Caliph Omar had refused this
agreement and considered it a despicable truce …But the same way Mohammed
had accepted it, we are now accepting this peace effort.”
On the same day that the Oslo accords were signed on the White
House lawn in September 1993, Arafat appeared on Jordanian Television to
explain that he regards the accords as merely the first phase of the PLO’s
1974 Strategy of Phases.
