Arafat Still Seeks Israel’s Destruction, Senior Israeli Official Says
News
June 17, 2004


NEW YORK- Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Yasir Arafat still seeks destruction, and, like Adolf Hitler, uses negotiations not in order to achieve peace but as a different method of achieving his final goals so says a senior Israeli military official.


Major-General (res.) Amos Gilad, who is head of the Political Security Bureau in the Defense Ministry and was previously chief of research in Military Intelligence (1996-2001), told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz on June 15, 2004:


* Arafat, Like Hitler, Will Use Negotiations as a Tactic:
“[E]ngaging [negotiating with] him was a mistake on the order of what happened in World War II. …he was always interested in the way of terror even though he sometimes chose political negotiation. …Adolf Hitler also promised 25 years of quiet after the Munich agreement.”


* Arafat Viewed Oslo Accord as “Interim Period,” Not Peace:
“[H]e did not deceive us in the Oslo Accords because he said that was an interim period … [H]e wants a temporary state in the ‘67 borders and then to expand westward into Israel.”


* Arafat Hopes to Flood Israel with “Refugees”:
“His main goal… is to undermine the demographic balance … He wants to bring the Lebanese refugees to Israel and more refugees to the Palestinian territory. Add the demographic change in places like Lod, where through marriage some 100,000 Palestinians have entered the country and become citizens.”


* Arafat Ordered the “Intifada”:
The mass Palestinian Arab terrorism that began in September 2000 was not spontaneous and was not the result of Israelis visiting the Temple Mount. Israeli Military Intelligence warned in 2000 that violence would begin in September. “I said that at all levels to the prime minister, the cabinet and the general staff … The assessment was that if [Arafat] did not get what he wanted in a political deal … he would … initiate terror attacks …The Shin Bet disagreed with us … I had arguments with Ami Ayalon, who headed the Shin Bet then. … during Operation Defensive Shield we discovered a document that precisely detailed the Arafat plan and justified what we had said.”


* Releasing Terrorists Was a Mistake:
“[In 2000,] Military Intelligence…issued a document that warned about the policy of the revolving door in which many terrorists were released from [Israeli] prison, that prison doors were simply opened and those bastards and the terrorists were allowed out and intensified the incitement.”


* Arafat Claims Temple Mount Was in Yemen:
“[A]ccording to Arafat…the Temple Mount [in Jerusalem, site of Judaism’s two holy temples in biblical times] must be under Palestinian sovereignty. He reinvents history and [claims we should look for] the Temple in the mountains of Yemen.”


* Some Israeli Leaders Ignored Military’s Warnings:
“Over all these years I have said that these are Arafat’s intentions, and I was sharply criticized for it by all the political elements who thought otherwise. Shimon Peres … did not like my assessments at all. … Barak was shocked, and thought otherwise.”


(Translation courtesy of IMRA)




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