Associated Press reporter admits covering up for Arafat

Arafat was clearly delusional in the interview with AP reporter, which they admit today, but he was portrayed as a man of peace.

by Stephen M. Flatow

Did American journalists cover up for Yasir Arafat, as critics often claimed at the time? A longtime reporter for the Associated Press has finally let the cat out of the bag, and it’s not a pretty sight.

Arafat (Wikimedia Commons)

In a recent blog post, the veteran journalist Dan Perry recounted an interview he did with Arafat for the AP in December 2001. The date is important, because for the previous fifteen months, Arafat had been leading a massive terrorism war against Israel, which the Palestinian Arabs called the “Second Intifada.” Wave after wave of suicide bombings and shootings, for which Arafat’s Fatah movement openly claimed responsibility. Those of us in Israel at the time will never forget the empty streets, stores and buses.

“Was Arafat the one sending crazies to blow themselves up in Israeli buses and cafes?,” Perry wrote in his recent blog. “The Palestinian narrative said violence began organically…and Israel overreacted. Something didn’t quite add up and my colleagues and I at the Associated Press resolved to figure the whole thing out.”

So, they set out for Ramallah, to “figure the whole thing out” by asking Arafat. Not by believing Fatah’s constant claims of responsibility for the attacks against Israel. Instead, they were going to ask Arafat.

The interview began with Arafat complaining that he was not getting enough praise for having “already arrested 17 key militants.” (Perry never uses the word “terrorists” a trend that continues to this day.)

Perry, in his recent blog: “I suggested that if violence so devastating was happening against his will for over a year, the forces carrying it out must be very strong indeed. ‘You are speaking with Yasser Arafat,’ he admonished me. ‘I know how to do it. I know how to do it.’ ”

Read that question again. Perry was challenging Arafat.  He was saying, in effect: “You claim the terrorism is being carried out against your will, which means that the terrorists must be ‘very strong indeed,’ which means arresting 17 of them is woefully inadequate.”

Having failed to get a straight answer about the arrests, Perry next asked Arafat if he “regretting not doing more to prevent the outbreak,” since “1,000 Palestinians had been killed” as a result of the violence. 

Perry was referring to terrorists who were killed in Israeli actions, and Arab civilians who were inadvertently killed when terrorists stationed their men and weapons in civilian neighborhoods, in order to use them as human shields.

The PLO leader’s response? “Arafat said the death toll actually stood at 2,000. I tried to argue, but Arafat insisted...”

Then Perry asked Arafat if he regretted not accepting Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s reported offer of a Palestinian state in 90% of the territories. “ ‘We have our independent state,’ Arafat protested. This would have been a major scoop! Did they sign a secret deal that they were keeping from the world? Arafat smiled in conspiratorial fashion: ‘Ask Barak’.” 

Thus, there were three significant news items contained in the interview: Arafat was evasive about why he had arrested only 17 terrorists; Arafat was lying about the death toll, falsely claiming that it was twice what it really was; and a delusional Arafat was weirdly claiming that a Palestinian state already existed.

Which of these revelations appeared in the article that Perry and his colleague Karin Laub wrote in their December 8, 2001, article for the AP?  

None of them. Not one.

—Arafat falsely inflating the number of fatalities. Not mentioned. 

-- Perry and Laub did mention Barak’s offer of a Palestinian state. But instead of truthfully reporting that the delusional Arafat claimed the state already existed, they wrote: “But the Palestinians held out for more land and a ‘right of return’ for millions of refugees and their descendants.” 

— And as for Perry challenging Arafat for arresting only 17 terrorists, here’s what Perry and Laub wrote: “Asked whether he would be prepared to face down resistance by the militants and their growing legions of supporters, Arafat smiled and said: ‘You are speaking with Yasser Arafat. I know how to do it. I know how to do it.’”

They simply covered up the fact that Arafat had evaded Perry’s question.

In fact, one could say the entire article was a cover-up. Instead of reporting what Arafat actually said—the delusions, the lies, the ducking of questions about the arrests—Perry and Laub portrayed Arafat as a man of peace who was bravely fighting the terrorists: “He said he will not shy away from a confrontation with the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups to revive what hope remains for peace…He said he will continue pursuing the rest despite the continuing Israeli airstrikes…He said he was ready to return to peace talks immediately…”

All this, despite the fact that Perry knew—as he wrote in his recent blog post—that Arafat’s claim of fighting the terrorists was wildly implausible, since there were so many of them, and he had arrested only 17 of those “key militants.”

Perry concluded his blog post with this interesting reflection on Arafat’s military uniform: “Perhaps it [was] borrowed from a play about a fairytale army whose ranks contain one single, solitary man. A very senior officer, who believed that everything was real.”

So today, Perry reflects wistfully on the delusional Arafat. But Perry knew the truth at the time. He knew from the interview that Arafat was a deluded, conspiratorial lunatic. But Perry covered it up. It would have been very helpful to Israelis, American Jews, and everybody else to know the truth about Arafat. They could have made more informed decisions if they had that information. But for some reason, Dan Perry and the Associated Press didn’t want them to have it. I wonder why.

Stephen M. Flatow, is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terrorism.”

This column first appeared on Israel National News.

 Emma Watson is right

 Hopefully, her declaration about the Palestinians will stimulate a serious conversation about the cruel occupation that the international community has been ignoring. 

“Free Palestine!” says actress Emma Watson.

 She’s right.

 The territories where the Palestinian Arabs live are indeed enslaved. They deserve to be freed from the tyrannical rule of their oppressors—Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

Emma Watson Wikimedia Commons

 The actress, best known for her role as Hermione Granger in the “Harry Potter” films, set off a firestorm in the world of social media with her Instagram post showing “Free Palestine!” banners and expressing “solidarity” with them. Hopefully, her declaration will stimulate a serious conversation about the cruel occupation that the international community has been ignoring.

The details concerning Hamas and the P.A., which I cite here, are all quoted from the latest reports by two strongly pro-Palestinian groups: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. These are not “Israeli allegations.” They are what the Palestinian Arabs’ most vocal supporters are saying about the two Arab regimes that rule over 98 percent of the Palestinian Arabs.

 During the past year, “the Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and the Hamas de facto administration in the Gaza Strip continued to crack down on dissent, including by stifling freedoms of expression and assembly, attacking journalists and detaining opponents,” reports Amnesty.

 Human Rights Watch notes that the P.A. recently jailed journalist Sami al-Sai for the crime of “administering a Facebook page that had posted information about PA corruption.” Twenty protesters in Ramallah who dared to cry out against P.A. corruption were likewise jailed. Hamas recently arrested seven citizens for “participating in a video chat where they answered questions from Israeli civilians about life in Gaza.” And other Gazans were jailed for “weakening the revolutionary spirit.

Hamas also frequently executes citizens after “trials” that are “marred with due process violations,” reports Human Rights Watch.

 How do the P.A. and Hamas regimes treat those whom it arrests? “Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and Gaza routinely used torture and other ill-treatment with impunity. … Security forces in both areas used unnecessary and/or excessive force during law enforcement activities.”

 What about women’s rights in Occupied Palestine? Amnesty: “Women and girls faced discrimination in law and practice and were inadequately protected against sexual and other gender-based violence, including so-called honour killings.” Last year alone, “nineteen women died in the West Bank and 18 in Gaza as a result of gender-based violence.”

 Human Rights Watch points out that the P.A. “has no comprehensive domestic violence law.” Keep in mind that the P.A. has been ruling for 27 years. Nearly three decades in power and still no comprehensive domestic violence law.

 With regard to gay rights, Amnesty reports: “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people continued to face discrimination and lacked protection” at the hands of Hamas and the P.A. In Gaza, section 152 of the penal code “criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual activity and makes it punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment.”

 Citing local Palestinian Arab human-rights activists, Amnesty says that in the past year, there were numerous “violations of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press,” as well as “158 cases in the West Bank and 118 in Gaza of the arbitrary arrests of opponents and critics.”

 Amnesty says that last year, the Palestinian Centre for Development and Media Freedoms “recorded 97 incidents of attacks against journalists, including arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment during interrogation, confiscation of equipment, physical assaults and bans on reporting: 36 in the West Bank and 61 in Gaza.”

 As for elections, the P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas is now in the 17th year of his four year-term and has repeatedly postponed parliamentary elections. In Gaza, too, democracy is a dirty word.

I realize that Emma Watson is an actress, not an expert on Middle East affairs. And in posting about “Palestine,” she might have just been going along with what she thinks all the cool young celebrities are doing.

 But perhaps the international uproar that she has provoked will inspire her to take a closer look at the implications of what she posted on Instagram. Because in raising the issue of freeing the Palestinian Arabs from their real occupiers, she’s actually on to something.

 Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terrorism.”

 

 

Once Again, Qatar Saves Hamas

by Stephen M. Flatow / JNS.org

The government of Qatar has again rescued Hamas.

Every time the Hamas terror regime in Gaza is on the brink of collapse, the Gulf state of Qatar comes riding in on a white horse like a knight in shining armor to ensure that Hamas will live to see another day. What happened to the “moderate” Qatar that American Jewish leaders were praising just a few years ago?

Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90.

This time, Hamas allegedly is running out of money to pay the salaries of its employees. If you don’t pay your employees, they don’t work. And if your workers don’t work, your gangster regime collapses. The collapse of Hamas would obviously be a good thing for Israel, the United States and modern civilization in general.

But once again, Qatar has jumped in on the side of the bad guys.

The new deal, according to media reports, will involve Qatar sending fuel to Gaza through Egypt. Hamas is then going to sell the fuel in order to meet its payroll.

That will keep Hamas in power so that it can continue firing thousands of missiles at Israeli kindergartens and kibbutzim near the Gaza border. And it can keep its cells in Judea and Samaria operating, so they can murder Jews there, too.

Qatar is already underwriting Gaza’s power plant and sending financial aid to 100,000 Gazans every month through a UN voucher system, which saves Hamas the expense of having to provide that aid. And it offered Hamas $500 million to rebuild after the 11-day conflict with Israeli in May—a conflict started by the terrorist organization and one that ended with the launching of more than 4,000 rockets at civilian populations in Israel. In short, Qatar is pretty much propping up the entire Hamas mini-terror state. 

Hamas is not the only terror gang supported by Qatar. Its close relationships with the Taliban and the Muslim Brotherhood have been well-documented. And a lawsuit now making its way through British courts charges that Qatar has sent hundreds of millions of dollars to the Al-Nusra Front, a Syrian-based affiliate of Al-Qaeda.

 And for those who are concerned about the rise of antisemitism around the world, it’s worth recalling that a report by the Anti-Defamation League found the official Qatari government media continues to publish editorial cartoons “which blatantly demonize Jews” and “draw on the worst kind of antisemitic themes.”

In addition, a review by MEMRI of textbooks prepared by Qatar’s Ministry of Education and used in its schools found that they “feature antisemitic motifs, presenting Jews as treacherous, dishonest and crafty, and at the same time as weak, wretched and cowardly.”

Moreover, the last international book fair in Qatar’s capital, Doha, featured antisemitic books such as “The Myth of the Nazi Gas Chambers” and “Lies Spread by the Jews,” and an Arabic translation of “Awakening to Jewish Influence in the United States of America” by white-supremacist leader (and former Ku Klux Klansman) David Duke.

This is all quite different from what we were told by the handful of leaders of American Zionist organizations who took all-expenses-paid trips to meet with the Emir of Qatar in his oil-rich Gulf kingdom in 2017-18. One Jewish official later admitted publicly that he was a paid, registered foreign agent of the Qatari government.

When the secret trips were exposed by journalists, the Jewish leaders defended their actions on the grounds that Qatar was becoming more moderate.

I don’t see anything “moderate” about Qatar hosting and sponsoring the world’s largest antisemitic media network, Al Jazeera.

I don’t see anything “moderate” about Qatar financing terrorist groups around the world.

And I don’t see anything “moderate” about Qatar rescuing and sponsoring a deadly terrorist regime along Israel’s southern border.

It’s time to take off the blinders and see Qatar for what it really is—a terror-funding outlet for antisemitic vitriol.

Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terrorism.”

 

 

A terrorist shatters all the stereotypes about terrorists

Before this latest horrible attack and the name of its dead victim—Eliyahu Kay, a 26-year-old immigrant from South Africa —fade from the news, let us at least learn one important lesson.

At first, it might seem as though Sunday’s attack in Jerusalem’s Old City was just another typical act of Palestinian Arab terrorism—an attacker with a submachine gun opened fire on a street not far from the Western Wall, murdering one Jewish passerby and wounding four others. We’ve heard that kind of horrible news a thousand times before. I’ve lived it.

Chabad.org

But when you look closely, it turns out that there is a lot to learn from this “typical” episode, because everything about it contradicts what the “experts” are always telling us about Arab terrorists and the evil deeds that they perpetrate.

The self-appointed experts say the “profile” of an Arab terrorist is an unemployed, single young man. But Sunday’s killer, Fadi Abu Shkhaydem, was none of those things.

The sociologists and think tank fellows who claim to know everything tell us that terrorists strike because “they have nothing to lose.” They supposedly have “personal problems” or “financial hardships.” They don’t have to worry about leaving behind widows or orphans. Well, this terrorist had everything to lose—but that didn’t stop him.

Shkhaydem was 42, not 22. He wasn’t an unstable, misguided youngster. He was a family man. He had a wife. He had five children. He simply didn’t care about making his wife a widow or leaving his children without a father. Murdering Jews was more important to him than the lives of his own loved ones.

In addition to the submachine gun, Shkhaydem was carrying a knife. Presumably, he wanted to be able to kill more Jews after his ammunition ran out.

Shkhaydem and his family lived in the northeastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat. Classified as a “refugee camp,” Shuafat is adjacent to two Jewish neighborhoods, Pisgat Ze’ev and French Hill. Its residents take the same light rail line as the residents of those cities. In other words, the Shkhaydems had plenty of opportunities for peaceful interaction with Israeli Jews.

The international news media often tell us that terrorists are merely “responding” to some “expansion” by Jewish settlers. They can’t trot out that excuse in this case. The Shkhaydems were living in Jerusalem. They were not being harmed in any way by Jewish “settlers.” Nobody was taking their land or threatening their livelihood.

The Shkhaydems hold Israeli identity cards and have the status of permanent residents of Jerusalem. They enjoy the same rights as Jewish Jerusalemites, including medical care and voting in municipal elections. (The only thing they can’t do is vote in general elections, since they are not Israeli citizens.) Nobody is oppressing them.

Shkhaydem was not some uneducated street thug. He has been described in news reports as “an Islamic scholar.” He was a well-known preacher in Jerusalem mosques, including the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount. He was a teacher at the Rashidiya Secondary School, in Jerusalem which is in the municipial school system, but teaches the PA curriculum. He was “working on his PhD,” according to Shibli Sweiti, the terrorist’s uncle.

The schools in the Shkhaydems’ Shuafat neighborhood are run by the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA. That’s a concession that the Israeli authorities have made, in the hope of fostering a peaceful atmosphere. That hasn’t worked out too well. UNRWA schools are notorious for using curricula that defame Jews and glorify terrorism. No doubt Fadi Abu Shkhaydem was pleased that his children are being educated there.

According to Israeli news reports, Shkhaydem’s friends and colleagues praised him as a “Mourabit,” or “defender of the faith” because of his frequent participation in rallies to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and to evict Jews from the Shimon HaTzadik / Sheikh Jarrah neighborhoods.

There’s a similar logic at work in those protests and in this week’s terrorist attack. One day, Shkhaydem is shouting about the need to keep Jews off the Temple Mount and out of the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood; the next day, he picks up a machine gun to try to put that message into practice, in blood. Jewish blood.

I wonder what J Street, B’Tselem, Americans for Peace Now, and all the others who have been demanding the expulsion of Jews from Shimon HaTzadik/Sheikh Jarrah will have to say about Shkhaydem putting their slogans into practice.

So far they haven’t said anything. They’re obviously hoping that the whole episode will quickly retreat from the headlines before anybody starts asking them any embarrassing questions.

But before this latest horrible attack is forgotten, and the name of its dead victim—Eliyahu Kay, a 26-year-old immigrant from South Africa —fades from the news, let us at least learn this one important lesson:

The main cause of terrorism is ideology, not poverty. That may be hard for some Americans to comprehend because it’s so different from our own experience. Most Americans are not ideological. American culture doesn’t accept political violence. The American government doesn’t promote the use of violence. And the religions that most Americans embrace do not espouse violence.

But, as everyone knows, the Middle East is not the Middle West.

Stephen M. Flatow

This column first appeared at https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/317340

 Stop taking pictures of terrorists!

Why exactly are the barbaric Israelis, with their violent cameras, taking so many pictures of Arabs? Can you guess?
 

My recent column on Israel National News.   

Israel’s critics have a new rallying cry: Stop taking pictures of terrorists! They don’t word it quite that way, of course. They wrap it in slogans about “big tech” and “privacy rights.” But at the end of the day, the message is the same—they don’t want Israel to keep track of Arab terrorists and their supporters.

 The Washington Post and the New York Times delivered this message with a journalistic one-two punch on November 9, each publishing a major feature story about how Israel is intrusive, sneaky and underhanded.

Security Cameras           iStock

The Post headlined its front page story “Israel Targets Palestinians with Cameras, Facial Tracking.” The word “target” was obviously intended to conjure up images of violence. They want readers to think of Israelis as sharpshooters with their rifles aimed at the backs of innocent Arabs.

 Why exactly are the barbaric Israelis, with their violent cameras, taking so many pictures of Arabs? It takes a patient and discerning reader of the Post to figure that out. One has to fist wade through paragraph after paragraph that Post correspondent Elizabeth Dwoskin has loaded with ominous terms like “secrecy,” “broad surveillance,” and “invasion of privacy.” The reader is thoroughly confused and frightened before he or she can even figure out why the Israelis are doing what they are accused of doing.

 What the Israelis are doing is secretly taking photographs of potential terrorists. Good! I’m delighted that they are using modern technology to engage in surveillance that will preempt massacres.

 Terrorists do not deserve privacy.

 I’m delighted that they are using modern technology to engage in surveillance that will preempt massacres.

 Elizabeth Dwoskin and the Washington Post evidently want Israel to feel guilty and stop taking the pictures. But Israel has nothing to feel guilty about. When the Palestinian Arabs stop trying to burn and stone Jews to death nearly every single day, the Israelis won’t need to take pictures of the would-be murderers.

 Over at the New York Times, that same day, a headline read, “Palestinians Targeted by Israeli Firm’s Spyware, Experts Say.” There’s that “target” word again, helping to create the impression that terrorists and aspiring terrorists are the victims.

 The Times actually managed to be even more slippery than the Post, because the Times article was not about the State of Israel or the government of Israel, but rather a private Israeli software company. How can you blame all of Israel for one company’s transactions? By portraying the Israeli government as a “backer” of the company, because the government has issued licenses and used some of the products.

 The product that seems to worry the Times the most is software that can access private telephones. The Israeli authorities used it to get into the phones of Palestinian Arab groups that it recently outlawed for supporting the terrorists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

 Well, once again, I say: Good! That’s how Israel finds out which Arabs are legitimate political activists, and which of them are funneling their European grants to PFLP terrorists.

 The Israelis had two choices regarding the six groups that it outlawed for helping the PFLP. Their first choice was to put privacy rights above the right to life. In other words, allow the groups to keep giving money to the PFLP, let the PFLP use the funds to buy guns and axes, and then mourn when PFLP terrorists make use of the guns and axes—like when PFLP members shot and hacked to death those four worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue in 2014.

 The Israelis’ second choice was to preempt such slaughter by outlawing the six groups and thus disrupting the flow of funds to the killers. I’m glad the Israelis chose that option.

 The story won’t end soon, however, because we all know how this little game works. First, the articles are published. Next, groups like J Street and Americans for Peace Now will declare how concerned they are by the “chilling effect” of Israel’s latest misbehavior. That will be followed by an “investigation” by some United Nations panel or “human rights” organization.

 In a few months, the investigators will release a “report” confirming what the accusers claimed before there was any investigation. J Street will then announce that the report “deserves serious consideration.” The Washington Post and the New York Times will publish articles about the report, quoting some Jewish former State Department official expressing grave concern. And so it will go, until the next inevitable round.

 Fortunately, the Israelis will ignore all this chatter. They have to ignore it because they have no choice—their lives are on the line. For Diaspora Jewish complainers, it’s all just an amusing intellectual exercise. For Israelis—of all political persuasions—it’s a matter of life and death. Literally.

 So American newspapers and UN panels and Diaspora Jewish whiners can complain all they want. At the end of the day, Israel is just not going to commit national suicide.

 Stephen M. Flatow, is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.”