- Longtime and now recently deceased confidant to former
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Uri Dan, published a book in France
that may have been his 2006 one titled Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait
in which he accused the former prime minister of assassinating Palestinian
Authority (PA) President Yasser Arafat by poisoning him.
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- Dan claimed Sharon got approval from George Bush by phone
early in 2004 to proceed with his plan after he told the US president he
was no longer committed to "not" liquidating the Palestinian
leader who then was under siege and practically incarcerated in what remained
of his Ramallah compound, most of which had already been destroyed by the
Israelis in a lawless act of retribution against him.
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- Based on his record during his tenure as Texas governor,
when he authorized more death row inmate executions than any US governor
in history (and was called by some the Texecutioner), this revelation should
come as no surprise. It's even clearer based on Ariel Sharon's boast once
about his relationship with George Bush saying: "We have the US president
under our control."
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- Arafat died in Paris on November 11, 2004 at age 75.
He was taken there on October 29 that year and hospitalized for treatment
for an undiagnosed illness that began developing in April and became serious
enough for him to need special care. It may have already been too late
when he arrived as he slipped into a coma on November 3 and remained in
that state till his death eight days later from what was explained at the
time as complications from a blood disorder. Indeed it may have been true
if his blood was poisoned by a substance able to work slowly and from which
no cure was possible at least once the former Palestinian leader arrived
in Paris.
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- To those knowledgeable about Israel's history since it
became a state in 1948 and earlier, this revelation, if true, should come
as no surprise. All Israeli governments have a long and disturbing record
of conducting targeted assassinations in Israel and abroad as it suited
them against all persons thought to be a threat to the Jewish state. From
his earliest days in 1969 as Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman
and President, Arafat went from enemy to ally and back to enemy again under
various Israeli governments depending on his willingness to deny his people
their rights in service and pledging fealty to Israeli authority as he
did in agreeing to the Oslo Accords, or Declaration of Principles (DOP),
signed at a White House ceremony in September, 1993.
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- This was an agreement from hell, a disgraceful act of
surrender, giving Israel what it wanted and Arafat and his cronies a "get-out-of-Tunis-free
pass" (where they took refuge when forced out of Lebanon after the
1982 Israeli invasion) to return to the Occupied Palestinian Territories
(OPT) where he agreed to serve as Israel's enforcer against his own people.
As it always was earlier and since that time, the Palestinians got nothing
but the right to have their lands stolen and lives immiserated with the
help and duplicity of their own leader and those complicit in his Fatah-led
government.
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- They endured this fate until the outbreak of the al-Aqsa
Mosque (or Second) Intifada on September 28, 2000 following Ariel Sharon's
provocative visit to what Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary in occupied
East Jerusalem. It's gone on since unabated up to and following Arafat's
death and led to the democratic election of a Hamas government in January,
2006.
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- Fed up with the corrupted Fatah party under Arafat (now
under Palestinian President and loyal Israeli servant Mahmoud Abbas), the
long-suffering Palestinian people voted them out in an election the Israelis
and Bush administration thought they had "arranged" properly
enough to assure their preferred quisling party would remain in power but
learned to their dismay it didn't turn out that way. It also didn't turn
out as Palestinians hoped either as Israel and the US, with complicity
or silence from the West, conducted a scorched earth campaign against a
defenseless people through invasions, daily attacks with sophisticated
and powerful weapons (supplied by Washington at US taxpayer expense), targeted
assassinations and other daily killings, mass arrests and incarcerations,
a systemic policy of torture, destruction of property, and denial of the
most basic rights and services essential to life and survival. And that
leaves out all the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did to the Lebanese people
over the summer that will take a least many years to recover from if Israel
will even allow it to happen.
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- Throughout it all, the courageous Palestinian people
continue struggling daily for their freedom and the right to be treated
as human beings to live in peace in their own land - against the greatest
odds with virtually no outside support or any show of caring about their
desperate state even from within the Arab world.
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- If Ariel Sharon murdered Yasser Arafat, it should surprise
no one, and further, if proved beyond dispute, it would never be reported
in the US corporate-controlled media even if it made headlines in Israel
which might be possible in a country allowing far more press freedom than
the total lockdown of it in "the land of the free and home of the
brave" where no press freedom is allowed through dominant news and
information sources and only is through alternative sources like the one
through which readers are now receiving this report. As we begin the new
year with the 110th Congress about to convene on January 4, it's one of
many issues to reflect on and consider what we ought to be doing about
it in our own behalf.
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- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
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