It is therefore with great astonishment that I witness, this fall, the decision of the Nobel Academy to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Yitzchak Rabin and Yasser Arafat. While Rabin is, perhaps, deserving of such an award, however dubious is his creation that he calls peace, Arafat is surely not deserving of any such honour. Yasser Arafat is the man singularly responsible for more human bloodshed, more death, more destroyed families, more injury, more violence, more terror, and more hate, than any other person alive today. The organization he commands has as its raison d'etre the physical annihilation of an entire nation.
The PLO was founded in 1964 -- before Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza area were under Israeli control. At the time of its founding, the Palestine National Covenant was adopted, calling for the invalidation and annihilation of Israel through any means possible, primarily violent ones. In 1968, Yasser Arafat became the head of the PLO, and had the Covenant passed through the PLO assembly once again, without making any real changes to it, and it was made binding on all PLO members. In 1974, Arafat chaired a conference in Khartoum, Sudan, at which time, the PLO passed a proposal which outlined the policy of gradual destruction of Israel. This policy provided that any land evacuated by Israel automatically be declared a Palestinian state, and that this territory be used as a base for launching more concerted military efforts toward the destruction of what was left of Israel.
Since 1964, and continuing even today, the PLO has engaged in a ceaseless campaign of murder, kidnapping, torture, injury, and massacre against Jewish inhabitants of Israel as well as Jewish and non-Jewish targets abroad.
Throughout the 1970's and 1980's the PLO was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. Children were massacred in Kibbutz nurseries, schools, busses, and hospitals were bombed, quiet residential neighbourhoods were infiltrated, beaches and hotels were bombed, and police officers were ambushed. And that was just in Israel. Abroad, restaurants and beaches were strafed, synagogues were bombed, airports were attacked, airliners and ships were hijacked with amazing impunity, and athletes were massacred. Embassies were bombed, and foreign representatives were murdered in cold blood. At the height of the terrorism, no Jew or westerner was safe anywhere in Europe.
In 1970, an abortive attempt was made to oust King Hussein of Jordan and turn that country into an armed terrorist camp from which to attack and destroy Israel. In 1978, the PLO took control of Eastern Beirut in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War, and from their enclave turned Lebanon, previously the most beautiful part of the Middle East, into the terrorist camp they so desperately needed from which to attack Israel. It took the Israeli invasion of 1982 to remove the PLO threat from its northern border.
Following the reorganization of the PLO in its new home in Tunis, the Intifadah uprising in Israel began. From its outset, the PLO controlled the Intifadah, employing the most ruthless means to avoid being crushed by the Israelis. Children were placed strategically in front of the real terrorists as a human shield through which the Israelis would not fire. Terrorist attacks grew in number and ferocity. Throughout the nearly seven years since the beginning of the Intifadah, 259 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian violence. And this number does not include the more than one thousand Palestinians who have been killed for "collaborating" with Israeli authorities.
At the beginning of the week in which the Nobel Committee was to announce the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Palestinian terrorists killed two Israelis sitting at an outdoor cafe in Jerusalem. One of the terrorists was found to be a member of the newly-created Palestinian police force in Gaza and Jericho. The other was found to have been a former prisoner in Israel, having previously committed terrorist acts in Israel. Under PLO orders, he signed a pledge that he would no longer commit violent acts in Israel in return for his release under the Cairo agreements between the PLO and Israel. So much for promises. The arms used in the attack belonged to the PLO police force. On the following day an Israeli off-duty soldier was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists, causing Yitzchak Rabin to suspend negotiations with Arafat pending his release.
Since the Oslo Accords were announced in August 1993, seventy-four Israelis have been killed by Palestinian terrorists. Yasser Arafat, pledged to condemn terrorism in these accords, has never done so. Having pledged in the Accords to amend the PLO Covenant, removing all references to Israel from its text, Arafat now refuses to do so.
Under Yasser Arafat's direction, the PLO has helped to train and supply terrorists from around the world, and belonging to most of the well-known terrorist organizations. These groups include the IRA, Baader-Meinhof Gang, Japanese Red Army, Italian Red Army, and various smaller groups throughout Europe and Asia. Arafat has also supported such notorious war-mongers as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadaffi.
Yasser Arafat is a violator of nearly every conceivable international law, and certainly every domestic law that might pertain to him. He is guilty of crimes against humanity as defined by the principle of Jus Cogens, or peremptory norms of international law. These norms include the prohibition of aggression -- Arafat, and the Covenant of the organization he leads, repeatedly call for the destruction of Israel, despite the Accords he has signed with Israel and the recognition he has voiced of that State -- the prohibition of genocide -- Arafat is responsible for more Jewish death and suffering than anyone since the time of Hitler -- the prohibition of piracy -- Arafat's organization was responsible for the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985 and for countless airline hijackings between 1968 and 1988 -- and the prohibition of systematic apartheid -- under the PLO Covenant, Israel is to be made Judenrein (free of Jews) following an Arab victory therein. Under the 1974 Khartoum Declaration, any areas vacated by Israel were to be made Judenrein.
The Nobel Peace Prize has previously been awarded to such noble personalities as Elie Weisel, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Ky, Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, Lester Pearson, Mother Theresa and the United Nations Peacekeeping forces. All these are people who made it their life's work to pursue peace and attain it. These people all worked for the betterment of life in their countries and in the world at large. It was the mission of all these people to improve the way humans treat each other through example, and this example deserves to be rewarded.
Yasser Arafat, on the other hand, has made it his life's work to kill innocent human beings in many countries around the world. His has been the direction for attempted and successful invasions of other states, for aggression in many major cities around the world, and for the installment of fear in the hearts of millions of people throughout the world. If there is one person alive today that should NOT be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it is Yasser Arafat. It would justify murder and massacre, and award it in the eyes of the World public. It would tarnish the names and reputations of all people before and after him to whom the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, and destroy the fine examples they have set. It would tarnish, if not destroy outright, the reputation of the Nobel Peace Prize and of the Nobel Academy.
Copyright 1994. Reproduction in electronic or print formats by permission only.
