Hang Saddam, then Arafat
By Ariel Natan Pasko
web posted December 15, 2003
"They got Saddam! They got Saddam!" Passengers on buses and trucks shouted, as others fired into the air and radio stations played upbeat celebratory music. People were dancing and distributing chocolates. These scenes occurred all over Iraq the Sunday Saddam finally got it.
Contrast that with the responses from "Palestine". According to Israel Radio, a senior Palestinian cabinet minister said that the Palestinian Authority would not issue a formal response to Saddam's capture, due to his financial support for suicide bombers and Yasser Arafat's support of Saddam during the 1991 Gulf War.
Mohammed Horani, a legislator from PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's ruling Fatah movement, said he expected many Palestinians and Arabs to have mixed feelings. "Saddam is a dictator and the Iraqi people suffered under him, but on the other hand, it was the (American) occupation that caught him," he said. "There will be a sense of confusion in the public."
Confusion in the Palestinian public?
Well sure, a population that when polled, regularly supports suicide bombings by a two-to-one margin; who received during the past three years of Palestinian terror against Israel, millions of dollars that Saddam sent to Judea and Samaria - the West Bank - and Gaza; including US$25,000 for the family of each suicide bomber and US$10,000 for each Palestinian killed in fighting with Israelis, that would surely confuse them.
According to an authoritative May 2003 Pew Global Attitudes Project opinion poll, 80% of Palestinians agreed with the statement: "The rights and needs of the Palestinian people cannot be taken care of as long as the State of Israel exists." Other polls since, consistently back up these findings. They clearly want to destroy the Jewish state; they don't sound confused to me.
I can "understand" their moral confusion, i.e. depravity!
Which brings us to another dictator and leader of a terrorist regime - whether as a gang, in Lebanon or Gaza - Yasser Arafat. For over 18 months already, I've been calling on the Israeli government to bring Arafat to Justice. I've written several articles, "An Eichmann Trial For Arafat," "Don't Expel Arafat," "Put Arafat On Trial Like Eichmann," and "Don't Expel Arafat 2: The Rerun."
 Arafat: Am I next? |
Arafat should be put on trial for crimes against humanity, i.e. the Jewish people, Lebanese, Americans, Palestinians, and others. Terror and murder against Jews and Israelis worldwide, everyone knows about. But do people remember that Arafat already some 20 years ago admitted his involvement in the 1974 murder of two American diplomats in Sudan, or the PLO murder spree throughout the 1970's and 1980's in Lebanon?
And yes, also Palestinians. The Americans found warehouses full of medical supplies, baby food, and other goods the west had sent Iraq during the years of sanctions under Saddam's regime, that Saddam withheld from his own people, to increase their suffering and victimhood to the eyes of the world. Arafat, like Saddam has diverted hundreds of millions - if not billions - of dollars of western donor money, that was supposed to help out impoverished Palestinians, but found it's way to Arafat's private bank accounts instead. Arafat deliberately impoverished his own people, to try to increase sympathy for them, and make himself rich. Under Arafat's regime of terror, quickie military night courts found "collaborators" - those accused of helping Israel - guilty and executed them without fair trial, or the right to appeal. Arafat signed all those orders of execution. Arafat should "also" be tried for hurting and murdering Palestinians.
Charges should be brought against Arafat, and he can be left in his Mukatah compound. Israel should surround it for the duration of the trial, and make it off-limits to the media, and foreign or Israeli visitors. Arafat's telephone and other communications links to the outside world should be cut-off. Mukatah will become Arafat's prison. Many in the Israeli media or politicians who have raised the issue of trial, always use the excuse, "But it would be too difficult to take him out." There, I've solved that problem. Leave him in the Mukatah.
Around the world it is not uncommon to try terrorists or organized crime figures without actually bringing them into court. Many times it's been considered to be too dangerous to move the prisoner from his cell to the court so he is represented via his lawyer. This can be done for Arafat. Due to the public support he is likely to get among Palestinians - even though he's been so cruel to them - moving him might be difficult. I therefore suggest trying him in absentia. When found guilty, if the Israeli army determines that it's too difficult to bring him to Jerusalem, to hang him like Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann in 1961; after sanitizing the area, the Israeli Air Force can bomb the compound with him inside, thus carrying out the death sentence. Arafat deserves execution as much as Saddam Hussein.
Let there be no excuses to carry out justice. They just got Saddam; let's
get Arafat too! 
Ariel Natan Pasko is an independent analyst & consultant. He has a Master's
Degree in International Relations & Policy Analysis. His articles appear
regularly on numerous news/views and think-tank websites, in newspapers,
and can be read at: www.geocities.com/ariel_natan_pasko (c) 2003/5764 Pasko
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