By Stan Goodenough
Nov 11, 2008
An elected member of Israel's Parliament (the Knesset) Tuesday mourned the loss of PLO arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat whose life's ambition had been the destruction of the Jewish state.
Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli Arab, was speaking in Ramallah on the fourth anniversary of Arafat's death.
According to Ynetnews he called on the killer to "rise from the grave and lead the Palestinians,"
"We miss your kaffiyeh - a symbol to all the revolutionaries and freedom-seekers worldwide" said Tibi, who had been an advisor to Arafat.
The Israeli lawmaker's views are believed to represent those held by a large but indeterminate number of Israel's Arab citizens who hate the country and openly support its destruction by the PLO and other Arab groups and states.
Israel, which magnanimously permits traitors of Tibi's nature to exercise their "freedom of speech" - has seen its often pacifistic permissiveness erode what was once one of its strongest assets: Arab respect for Israeli military might.
Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's successor at the helm of both the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, followed Tibi to the podium.
"The Palestinian leadership will continue to follow Yasser Arafat's path until a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is established," he declared.
"The path of the [terrorist] martyrs - Arafat, George Habash (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine founder) and (assassinated Hamas spiritual leader) Sheikh Ahmed Yassin - is the path that we cherish; it is aimed at upholding the Palestinians' [sic] nationalist and sovereign resolutions."
Abbas told the listening crowd that the PLO would continue to follow in Arafat's path, and vowed that there would never be a peace agreement with Israel unless Jerusalem agreed to a "massive" release of imprisoned "Palestinian" terrorists.