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Palestinian Arabs

Analysis: What a web these Arabs weave


By Stan Goodenough
September 23, 2005

News item: ?The United States announced Saturday that it disapproves of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's statement that Israel will not allow Palestinian elections to take place in [Judea and Samaria] if Hamas participates in them. Earlier, Sharon told journalists in New York that Israel does not intend to allow the January elections with Hamas participation, unless the group disarms and revokes its call for the destruction of the State of Israel.? ? Ha?aretz (September 19, 2005)

Permit me to make a prediction (if not a prophecy):

Hamas will participate in the elections, and Sharon?s strong rejection of its involvement will come to nothing.

We are about to witness the latest devilish example of brilliantly prosecuted ?Palestinian? stagecraft ? the secret behind the PLO?s success.

This is how it will happen.

Expect to hear, in the coming weeks, a decrease in Hamas? claims of responsibility for acts of terrorism, while its leadership creates a higher profile in the political realm.

Expect to hear Hamas leaders soften their stand on the irrevocability of their charter.

Expect, too, that where there are attacks, responsibility for them will increasingly be claimed by the Popular Resistance Committees ? the group that accepted accolades earlier this month for killing former PA security chief Moussa Arafat.

The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) is set to become one of the main bad boys in the Israeli-Arab conflict. It is already being counted among the ?extremists,? the ?fundamentalists.? Like the Tanzim and Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the PRC is ensuring that it will be labeled an ?enemy of peace.?

As this happens, Hamas will become one of ?the more moderate,? winning favor or at least a nod from the nations spearheading the Arab-Israeli peace process, who will increasingly pressure Israel to negotiate with the Islamist group.

The elections will see Hamas and the PA form a coalition, which together will push forward the ?Palestinian? political struggle ? with their combined overwhelming popular support securing them further legitimacy in the eyes of the international community, clinching their drive for a state.

What leads us to make such a prediction? The track record of the PLO.

The PRC is only one of the latest creations of the Palestine Liberation Organization. In fact, the PRC was purposely propagated by the PLO in order to create that oh-so-effective division of labor for which the grandfather of terrorist organizations has become so well known.

It was conceived, as we shall likely soon see, for the express purpose of carrying out more attacks on Israelis in the immediate future, thereby serving to:

  1. Feed the Arab street?s insatiable appetite for Jewish blood and so fuel their belief in their ultimate victory over the whole Jewish state, and 

    </li><li><p>Cast
the Hamas in comparatively respectable light as more of a political
and less of a terrorist organization.</p>

Let?s see how effective this kind of propagation has been.

The Palestine Liberation Organization was created for the sole purpose of destroying Israel for and on behalf of the greater Arab umma ? the Islamic Arab nation.

From its inception in 1964 (before an ?Israeli occupied West Bank? existed to liberate), that goal has remained unswervingly the same.

And the PLO has made massive advances in this direction ? probably beyond the wildest dreams of its founders.

Back then, the description ?Israeli occupied territory? was unknown to the world?s news media and thus to the world. The Palestinian Arabs were not regarded as a nation, and no-one was talking about the creation of a Palestinian state. While most of these Arabs were refugees, they comprised a small drop in the bucket of refugees worldwide, most of whom were on their way towards being absorbed and rendered homeless and stateless no more

Today the entire world believes that the Palestinians are a nation, with the right to a homeland on Israel?s historic, ancient land. Virtually every nation views Israel as an expansionist occupier; its citizens as war criminals and human rights abusers. Increasingly Israel is believed to be the nation posing the greatest threat to world peace.

What successes the PLO has racked up!

Arafat did not achieve this by violence alone. What he quickly learned, not too long after first employing terrorism to propel the ?plight of the Palestinians? into the international spotlight, was that he could make more headway towards achieving his overall goal by ensuring that the terrorism continued, but at a distance from himself, while he ?abandoned? violence in favor of a political solution.

This ploy, which Arafat used to impressive effect, was brought into play in 1970 with the founding of the Black September Organization (BSO).

Ostensibly a breakaway of Arafat?s Fatah (the largest faction of the PLO), the BSO perpetrated the Munich Olympic Games hostage taking and massacre.

The BSO was portrayed as a ?small cell of Fatah men determined to take revenge on King Hussein? after he drove the PLO out of Jordan. However, a 1973 document released by the US State Department in 1981 confirmed that Fatah was the BSO?s parent organization.

In his book ?Stateless,? Arafat's chief of security and a founding member of Fatah, Salah Khalaf, recorded that ?Black September was not a terrorist organization, but was rather an auxiliary unit of the resistance movement, at a time when the latter was unable to fully realize its military and political potential. The members of the organization always denied any ties between their organization and Fatah or the PLO.?

A BSO terrorist and former senior PLO leader, Abu Daoud, told Jordanian police: ?There is no such organization as Black September. Fatah announces its own operations under this name so that Fatah will not appear as the direct executor of the operation.? (Al-Dastur 1972).

Among the BSO?s leaders were deeply loyal Arafat men like Ali Hassan Salameh ? the commander of Force 17, Arafat?s personal bodyguard.

The years have seen many such supposed splits in the PLO, with breakaway groups forming, among them the Abu-Nidal Group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestine National Army, etc.

Arafat was encouraged to continue in that way by Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who according to the chief of that country?s foreign intelligence services, Ion Papeca, advised the PLO leader:

?You can keep as many operational groups as you want, as long as they are not publicly connected to your name. They could mount endless operations?while your name and your government would remain pristine and unspoiled, ready for negotiations and further recognition.?

Thus did Arafat?s Fatah faction of the PLO cut back on its overt involvement in terrorism, while operational groups like Black September and others carried out attacks in their own name. These groups and their leaders were increasingly referred to as ?the hardliners,? while Arafat and his coterie became the moderates with whom Israel was pressured to do business.

As ?Palestinian? terrorist groups proliferated, Arafat moved closer to the middle of the road, and began whittling away at the unwillingness of the USA to negotiate with him and his PLO.

Ultimately his duplicitous efforts paid off handsomely, and he was welcomed to the White House and accorded the treatment due a statesman, with the leader of the free world offering to help him obtain a state for his people at Israel?s expense.

From there it was a short plane flight to Stockholm, where the Nobel Committee awarded him its universally prestigious peace prize.

By the time this all happened ? in 1993/94 ? the PLO was working alongside another organization whose actions helped to contrast Arafat as ?a moderate.?

The Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad had come alongside the PLO in its struggle against Israel.

During the Oslo years we came to know additional groups such as the Tanzim (Arafat's), the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (Arafat's) and the Fatah Hawks (Arafat's).

In March 2002 the leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Tulkarm told USA Today: ?The truth is, we are Fatah, but we didn't operate under the name of Fatah... We are the armed wing of the organization. We receive our instructions from Fatah. Our commander is Yasser Arafat himself.?

For its part, Hamas has the Izzadin al-Kassam ?armed wing.?

Now, as we hear that Hamas is willing to moderate its stance and join in the elections, we see the Popular Resistance Committees coming to the fore.

Again with this group there is perceived reality. And there is reality.

The perceived reality is that the PRC is a breakaway from a number of Palestinian terror groups. According to the BBC, the PRC is regarded as ?a fringe group, consisting mainly of dissident or breakaway members of the mainstream Fatah movement and former Palestinian security officials.?

The reality is that, as an influential Jerusalem Post columnist describes it, the PRC ?is a terror group formed by Arafat in the months ahead of the war in the spring of 2000 that includes elements of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Members of the group also serve in the official Palestinian militias.?

Despite the fact that these things are known,it is the perceived reality ? the smoke and mirrors ? that will prevail over what is really going on.

With its strategy, the PLO has given a whole new meaning to the maxim ?divide and conquer?: Instead of dividing their enemies to conquer them, they have divided themselves to conquer their enemy.

Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (and the PLO, the Islamic Jihad, the PNC, the PNA, the PFLP, the PFLP-GC, etc.) share the same goal: Israel?s destruction and the raising on her ruins of another Muslim Arab state.

Does anyone doubt for a moment that, with their goal achieved, these groups will come together to joyously celebrate their common victory over the hated Jews?

Their impetus towards their day of victory will not be slowed or stalled unless or until Israel cuts through the brambles, clears the water, dowses the smoke.

The Palestinian Arab ?liberation? groups are all the same. They are all one enemy.

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