Senator Fred Thompson's Statement on the Clinton Impeachment

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In an interview this past week with Sean Hannity, Fred Thompson explained his split vote in the Bill Clinton impeachment trial: he voted "guilty" on obstructing justice and "not guilty" on perjury.

On February 12, 1999, Thompson entered his "closed-door impeachment statement," which can be found on many sites on the web, but I've linked to AustralianPolitics.com, because the text is easier to read. This statement is long...very long. Much of it restates the charges and the history behind the charges.

As an aside from me, it seems that President Clinton's escapade with Monica Lewinsky should have been viewed as an opportunity for blackmail. Lewinsky could have been anyone, could have had sinister motives, could have put our President and this country in great danger. If reports are true, think of Yassar Arafat, biding his time in the Rose Garden as he awaited Monica's departure and Bill's summons. Had Arafat known, could he have used the information to gain support for Palestinian endeavors? Far-fetched? Maybe not.

Follows the factors Thompson considered to arrive at his "not guilty" vote on charges of perjury. All inset text is taken directly from Thompson's statement as printed in AustralianPolitics.com, where you can read the entire statement.

He took issue with:

Several crimes or categories of crimes (the exact number cannot be determined from reading the article) are charged in this one article. The perjurious statements are not described, nor are their dates. In
large part, this article charges that the President committed perjury because he denied prior perjury.

The reason for rules against charging several offenses in one article is clear. A group of senators as few as seventeen could conclude that the President was guilty of one offense in the article, and a group of other senators could conclude that the President was guilty of another offense in the article and so on. This could result in the President being found guilty on one article without two-thirds of the senators ever agreeing upon a single offense that the President committed.

Never has the Senate considered articles that are simultaneously omnibus, vague, and based upon `one or more' of the charges being proved.

Compounding this problem, the individual items alleged in the article are vague

The articles pending against President Clinton are unique. Never has the Senate considered articles that are simultaneously omnibus, vague, and based upon `one or more' of the charges being proved.

Articles of impeachment henceforth should not permit conviction based upon `one or more' findings of guilt. They should list specific conduct, preferably in separate articles. Removal of elected or appointed government officials, especially a president, should occur only when the public can be sure that the process has been appropriate. Articles such as those before the Senate in this case do not further that goal. The Senate should amend Rule XXIII to permit impeachment articles to be divided, so as to eliminate any incentive for the House to adopt duplicitous articles of impeachment.

In prior impeachments charging false statements, the House has always delineated the date and substance of the false statement. Indeed, in every impeachment proceeding since Judge Pickering in 1803, articles of impeachment exhibited by the House have included allegations of specific misconduct.

Never has the Senate voted for conviction on an article that charged an individual with `one or more' improper actions.

Unfortunately, instead of following precedent, the House in the case before us deviated from previous practice.

The Senate also has never been asked to convict someone for conduct that formed the basis for an article of impeachment that was rejected by the House. Although in a literal sense, no such article is before the Senate, in a practical sense that is the situation. The House failed to pass an article of impeachment against President Clinton that accused him of, on January 17, 1998, `willfully provid[ing] perjurious, false, and misleading testimony in response to questions deemed relevant by a Federal judge...

The House claims that the President's statement in his grand jury testimony that he intended to be unhelpful but truthful in his deposition, and that he did not violate the law in his deposition, amount to perjury in the grand jury if a single statement in his deposition was perjurious. However, the President did not broadly reaffirm the truth of all his deposition testimony. Indeed, before the grand jury, the President revised many statements he had made in the Jones deposition.

On the three specific counts of Grand Jury Perjury:

...The first is his testimony concerning `the details and nature of his relationship with a subordinate Government employee.' The President admitted in the grand jury that he had an inappropriate relationship with Ms. Lewinsky.

To be sure, President Clinton contended that the relationship began in 1996, rather than 1995. The House managers note that this is significant because Ms. Lewinsky was an intern in 1995. The House also points out that the President admitted inappropriate conduct `on certain occasions,' when, in reality, there were eleven such occasions, and that he had `occasional' telephone encounters with Ms. Lewinsky when there were at least seventeen that contained sexual banter. I do think that these statements constitute perjury. They were false, were made willfully, and were material. Something that happens seventeen times in a year does not occur `occasionally.' Given the sensitivity of Ms. Lewinsky's status as an intern, I believe that the President deliberately told the grand jury that his relationship with her began in 1996, when she no longer had that status. Finally, the statement is material because it concerns a matter that the grand jury was investigating as part of its work: the nature of the President's relationship with Ms. Lewinsky. For these reasons, the statement was perjurious.

The President's statement to the grand jury that he regretted that what began as a friendship changed into an inappropriate sexual relationship was also knowingly false, since the two engaged in sexual relations twice on the same day that they first spoke. Thus, the statement was made to deceive, and given that it related to a subject of the grand jury's inquiry, it was material. Therefore, I agree that this statement also constitutes perjury, so that the first item of Article I has been proved. The second item charged in Article I addresses statements the President made in the grand jury regarding the truth of his deposition testimony. For the reasons above stated, I consider finding perjury based on an article of impeachment that the House rejected to be questionable.

The third item charged in Article I concerns grand jury testimony involving `false and misleading statements he allowed his attorney to make to a Federal judge in that civil rights action.' Before the grand jury, President Clinton testified that he was `not even sure I paid attention to what he [Mr. Bennett] was saying' when his attorney represented to the court that Ms. Lewinsky's affidavit stated that there was no sex of any kind between her and the President. As a factual matter, given the videotape that shows the President concentrating very carefully on his attorney's words and the great importance that he placed on that affidavit and its filing in time, this statement's characterization of the President's attention was certainly false. However, the President said that he `was not even sure" that he was paying attention. It is possible, although unlikely, that he was not sure in August that he was paying attention to that specific statement in January. That would make the statement literally true and thus, by definition, not perjurious. And in any event, I cannot determine beyond a reasonable doubt that his statement was perjurious. Indeed, the real issue is whether President Clinton used the affidavit to obstruct justice: whether he actually was paying attention to his unsuspecting attorney when the affidavit was actually used to obstruct justice is of questionable materiality.

The fourth item of the perjury allegations in Article I concerns `his corrupt efforts to influence the testimony of witnesses and to impede the discovery of evidence in that civil rights action.' The first set of facts under this category evidently concerns President Clinton's statements to Ms. Currie on January 18, 1998, which he described as having been made to refresh his recollection. The President's stated reason for making these statements to Ms. Currie was false. He knew that they were not true, and the President knew that Ms. Currie could not testify to their truthfulness. Thus, his statement of purported purpose for making them, as communicated to the grand jury, was made willfully, with the intent to deceive the grand jury. They were material as well, since they went to the issue of whether he had committed a federal crime. They thus constitute perjury.

The second set of facts at issue in item four of Article I apparently concerns whether the President truthfully told the grand jury that when the subject of the subpoenaed gifts arose at his December 28, 1997 meeting with Ms. Lewinsky, he told her `if they asked her for the gifts, she'd have to give them whatever she had, that that's what the law was.' Although Ms. Lewinsky never testified that the President said this to her, she once indicated that it sounded familiar. Thus, I am not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the President lied when he testified that he made this statement.

The third set of facts in item four of Article I addresses alleged lies that he made to the grand jury concerning the truth of statements that he made to White House aides. Before the grand jury, the President stated that he had told his aides that he did not have sex with Ms. Lewinsky as he defined it, and that he told them `things that were true about this relationship.' In reality, the President told them false statements, such as a broader denial of sexual activity than that defined as even he had defined it, and that Ms. Lewinsky was a stalker who came on to him, but whom he rebuffed. The President's statements to the grand jury in this regard were false, and were intended to deceive the grand jury about a federal crime of obstruction of justice through the telling of false statements to persons he knew might become witnesses before that grand jury, and therefore committed perjury.

So, some statements were perjurious and some were not:

I conclude that the statements concerning Betty Currie, and the statements concerning what he told his aides do constitute perjury. I also find that the President committed perjury with respect to item one of Article I with respect to his statements that he and Ms. Lewinsky's relationship began as a friendship, that it started in 1996, and that he had `occasional' encounters with her. These are the only examples of grand jury perjury that I believe have been proved in the entirety of Article I. The question then is whether these examples of perjury warrant removal of the President for the commission of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Fred's conclusion and reasons for voting to acquit President Clinton:

Is removal appropriate when the President lied to the grand jury that he denied to his aides that he had engaged in sex only as he had defined it, when in fact he had denied engaging in oral sex? Is removal warranted because the President stated that his relationship began as a friendship in the wrong year and actually encompassed more telephone encounters than could truthfully be described as `occasional'? To ask the question is to answer it. In my opinion, these statements, while wrong and perhaps indictable after the President leaves office, do not justify removal of the President from office.

And Thompson's comment on his decision:

In no way does my conclusion ratify the White House lawyers' view that private conduct never rises to impeachable offenses...It simply recognizes how the principles the Founding Fathers established apply to these facts.

Culling-down Thompson thoughts on the matter of "High Crimes and Misdeameanors," and specifically the charges against President Clinton, Thompson says:

I believe that the founders did not intend to make our job easy. They provided no list of offenses.

Today we are faced with an unprecedented situation. The President engaged in inappropriate personal conduct. It had nothing to do with his official duties, but it did involve a federal employee under his supervision, government time and government facilities. In an attempt to conceal and cover up that activity, he lied, misled and helped conceal evidence both physical and testimonial in a court proceeding. In doing so he elicited the help of other government employees. Therefore, the subject matter was essentially private, but the forum, a United States court, became public. One side says that he `only lied about sex,' and it had nothing to do with his official duties, therefore, it `clearly does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.' The other side says that any perjury and any obstruction of justice `clearly does rise to the level of an impeachable offense.' I do not think that either position is consistent with history or proper analysis.

It is extremely important that we refrain from latching onto a definition of `high crimes and misdemeanors' simply because it leads us inexorably to a conclusion which we may desire. Clearly, a President's offense or offenses must be serious and/or have serious consequences. Also, while they do not have to be crimes, my own opinion is that in most cases they will be crimes. They must be crimes against the state, but we cannot adopt an unreasonable restriction of that term. The President does not have to order tanks to move on the J. Edgar Hoover building. Offenses against the state can include activity which will undermine our governmental institutions. How can we say that bribing a judge to effect an outcome in a law suit involving a President's purely personal conduct constitutes an impeachable offense, but say that insinuating perjury into that same law suit to effect the same outcome is clearly not impeachable? And while it is true that the founders meant to cover `public' behavior, I believe they also meant to cover behavior that has a negative effect on the public if it is of sufficient gravity. Furthermore, if the President's conduct poses a threat and danger to a country, that certainly is a legitimate (though not exclusive) consideration. If that same conduct serves to undermine the President's credibility and moral authority, that could also pose a danger to the country and is similarly a legitimate consideration. And, again his conduct does not necessarily have to deal with his office. In the Constitution, a named offense is bribery (treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors), and bribery itself does not necessarily have to do with the President's official capacity, if the President is making the bribe.

Article End
Posted by Maggie

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Anyone Armed with the Facts Could Have Predicted…

By Jim Simpson An article in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, Straight Talk on Palestine, states bluntly that the Palestinian government remains committed to terrorism and still refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist. This only comes as a surprise to the cognoscenti. In fact, way back in the 1970s, when we knew the PLO were merely monstrous terrorists, a plan was hatched by their Soviet sponsors to deliberately deceive the West into believing that then PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and his merry band of murderers had moderated. It’s a pretty amazing story. This counterintelligence deception is discussed in great length in a book, Red Horizons, by Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa. Gen. Pacepa was Romania’s intelligence chief under the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu and was the highest ranking Soviet block intelligence officer ever to defect to the West. You can get some of the threads by reading an interview with the author here. He also has a lot to say about Saddam’s ephemeral Weapons of Mass Destruction. Read about that here. The cliff notes version: all Soviet-sponsored states have an emergency plan for removing or destroying their WMD if Western powers get too close to discovering them, and the Soviets helped Saddam get rid of his before the US showed up. This article makes a fascinating read regarding the entire subject. Read it if you have the time. But I digress. Back to the PLO and Palestine. There are explicit, straight-forward reasons why the Palestinians do not now, never have and never will, settle for merely getting their own state. Some of the reasons for this may surprise you. I wrote an article shortly after Yasser Arafat died, which discussed the man, the history of the PLO and why it is an absolutely incontrovertible fact that the destruction of Israel always has been and always will be the Palestinians’ only true goal. Titled, “Who Was Yasser Arafat?” you can see it here. This article will arm you with the facts regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and allow you to make easy predictions about what is to come. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the true nature of that conflict. It will also broaden your understanding of the entire Middle East problem. As the Arabs keep telling us, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the epicenter. But few can really articulate why, when it directly affects such a small number of them. This article may suggest some answers. Reading the few articles referenced above reveals to any open-minded person that the facts are out there, available for all to see, and provide pretty straight-forward, if not immediately apparent reasons for some of the chaos we face today. The rest can be similarly explained. Yet we remain dangerously alone in the dark. It is a testimonial to the depths of duplicity some members of our political and media classes have gone to hide the truth, that these plain, simple facts are not common knowledge. Through ignorance in some cases, but I believe malevolent intent in many more, these people really do not want us to know the truth. I call them traitors and their numbers in Congress, the media and elsewhere are significant and growing. We are tottering at the brink. Time to raise the alarm bells. Businessman and freelance writer Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst (1987-1993). His writings have been published in the Washington Times, FrontPage Magazine, DefenseWatch, Soldier of Fortune and others. You may read more of his articles on his blog, Truth and Consequences.

Yasser Arafat: The Ugly Legacy Continues

I recently posted two entries on Palestine-Israel: one a bulleted list of Who and What are Palestinians - Post 1, and then Arabs Inside Israel Seek Change. Jim Simpson (bio below) offered his related article to Maggie's Notebook: "Who Was Yasser Arafat". Arafat's influence on Palestinians stills weighs heavily on the free world. The lack of support for Israel in the U.S. is baffling and I can only assume that many do not know the background of Israel, the holy lands and Palestine; what other excuse can there be to ignore the call for the destruction of a people? Here's the updated, and footnoted, article from Jim exposing background on Islam's never-ending quest to eliminate Israel: BIO: Freelance writer Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst (1987-1993). His writings have been published in the Washington Times, FrontPage Magazine, DefenseWatch, Soldier of Fortune and others. You may read more of his articles on his blog, Truth & Consequences.

Who Was Yasser Arafat By Jim Simpson Update February 26, 2007 The article below remains as relevant today as it was when written. This is because it correctly analyzes the true nature of the “Palestinian Problem.” The character of which has been utterly ignored if not deliberately suppressed by our friends in the mass media. This has been borne out by actions, as well as statements, of both Hamas and Hezbollah over the past year. In short, nothing has changed. The Palestinians, no matter who is in charge, no matter the concessions in land and dollars, will continue to work toward the destruction of Israel until they succeed or are destroyed in the process. This is inevitable due to the true nature of the Palestinian movement. Read and learn. March 2, 2005 The January elections in Iraq seem to have awoken dormant aspirations for freedom all over the Middle East. From protests in Lebanon and the fall of Lebanon’s Syrian backed government, to promised elections in Egypt, a bright flame of hope has been kindled. Adding to the optimism, the recent death of Yasser Arafat paved the way for election of a new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, upon whom the world has pinned high hopes for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Since this conflict is said to be the epicenter of Middle Eastern turmoil, how realistic are hopes for its resolution? How much faith can we put in Mahmoud Abbas? To even begin to honestly evaluate these questions, we must first dispense with the myths and legends surrounding Yasser Arafat and make a full and honest disclosure of his record and the nature of the organization through whose ranks he rose. Such honesty has unfortunately been sorely lacking in public discourse over the past thirty years, but is essential if we are to accurately gauge Abbas’ prospects for success. There was an outpouring of sympathy from leaders around the globe following Arafat’s death on November 11, 2004. Typical was the remark by French President Jacques Chirac, who called him “a man of courage and conviction who for 40 years incarnated the Palestinians' fight for recognition of their national rights.”(1) Without doubt Arafat is the person most often identified with the cause of Palestinian statehood. But this characterization, made popular by mainstream Western media, and reflected in remarks by leaders such as Chirac, is so far off the mark one wonders how they could have remained so uniformly deluded for so long. So who and what was Yasser Arafat really? What Yasser Arafat was not Yasser Arafat was not a Palestinian. He was an Egyptian. He was born in Cairo Egypt, as Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat As Qudwa al-Hussaeini, of a merchant father from Gaza who shuttled back and forth between the two cities. His mother was from Jerusalem. Now you might conclude from his parentage that this would still make him a Palestinian by heritage if not birth. But in fact—and this may shock you—there is no cultural, racial, or national “Palestinian” identity except that invented by the PLO. Palestinians are Arabs who have lived for a time in the area generally regarded as “Palestine”. The area has never in history been under autonomous “Palestinian” rule. Who could make such an audacious claim? Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir did, for one (2). Perhaps however, it would be more credible coming from the PLO itself. Every now and then, such groups dispense with the propaganda and reveal what they are really up to. PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein made one such statement to a Dutch newspaper in 1977. He said: The Palestinian people does not [sic.] exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.(3) Going even further back, the PLO’s first leader, another Egyptian named Ahmed Shukairy, said: “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria.”(4) The following historical summary puts it in perspective(5): The Romans first used the name Palestine in 70 A.D. as part of their effort to suppress the Jews. It was intended as an insult, being derived from “Philistines”, a people conquered by the Jews centuries before. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and by the British after World War I, but there has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Yasser Arafat was not a champion of Palestinian statehood. His purpose was the elimination of Israel as part of the larger goal of eliminating western influence in the region and creating one unified Arab nation. In Article 15, The PLO charter clearly states: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. It has been asserted that the correct translation for “elimination of Zionism” is “elimination of Israel.”(6) “Imperialist aggression” as usual, refers to the Western powers, the U.S. in particular. Nothing in the PLO charter has changed, despite the many contradictory statements from Arafat and other PLO leaders suggesting they would settle for a “Palestinian State” coexisting side-by-side with Israel. A Palestinian state is not their goal, never has been. The PLO sees Palestine and Palestinians as “an integral part of the Arab nation”, and that Palestinian “liberation” and “Arab unity” are complementary goals. In Articles 13 and 14, the charter states: 13. Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine are two complementary objectives, the attainment of either of which facilitates the attainment of the other. Thus, Arab unity leads to the liberation of Palestine, the liberation of Palestine leads to Arab unity; and work toward the realization of one objective proceeds side by side with work toward the realization of the other. 14. The destiny of the Arab nation, and indeed Arab existence itself, depend upon the destiny of the Palestine cause. From this interdependence springs the Arab nation's pursuit of, and striving for, the liberation of Palestine. The people of Palestine play the role of the vanguard in the realization of this sacred (qawmi) goal. To see this clearly one must understand what they mean by “Arab unity”. As I have asserted in earlier essays, it is another phrase for the “single Arab nation” idea pursued by the Ba’athists of Iraq and Syria(7), which in turn is a twist on the familiar “unification” demands of communist movements all over the world as justification for aggression, including but not limited to Vietnam (“One Vietnam”), Korea (Unification), and Red China (Taiwan is a “breakaway” province which needs to be reunified with the mainland). It is not surprising therefore that Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization, and all the other Palestinian revolutionary movements for that matter, have received much of their support from Syria and (until Operation Iraqi Freedom), Iraq. For unlike the other nations of the Middle East, who would rather maintain national autonomy thank you very much, the Ba’athists support the idea of a “Common Arab Homeland” (unified under the Ba’athist banner, of course). This is not surprising either, given the fact that both the PLO and the Ba’athist movement were originally creations of the Soviet Union–the PLO is a Soviet inspired Communist movement. This is evidenced in the Charter’s frequent use of familiar terms like “Imperialist and Imperialism” which are KGB coined invectives for the United States, and others like “Vanguard, and Progressive” which are familiar Soviet terms applied to communists and communist movements. But you need not decipher words in the charter to reach that conclusion. Former CIA Deputy Director Ray Cline provided ample proof in his book Terrorism, The Soviet Connection.(8) Ion Pacepa, acting chief of Romanian foreign intelligence, was the highest-ranking intelligence officer to ever defect from the Soviet Bloc. His group was tasked with training PLO leaders. In a recent interview with FrontPageMagazine.com, he stated: The PLO was dreamt up by the KGB, which had a penchant for ‘liberation’ organizations. In 1964 the first PLO council, consisting of 422 Palestinian representatives handpicked by the KGB, approved the Palestinian National Charter-–a document that had been drafted in Moscow.(9) Yasser Arafat was not a Moslem. He was fully indoctrinated in the culture and ideology of radical communist revolutionaries and enjoyed the support and full backing of the Soviet Bloc. He was a Communist. Pacepa flatly stated Arafat was a “devoted Marxist-Leninist.”(10) This is not really news, any movement dreamt up by the KGB would, by definition, have to be communist at its core. Arafat’s professed belief in Islam, right down to TV shots of him bowing on a prayer mat in traditional Moslem fashion, is pure political theater, nothing more. So Arafat’s al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, while professing allegiance to Allah, are simply stooges carrying out the terrorist policies of the PLO. Arafat’s goal and that of the PLO has never changed. In his FrontPage interview Pacepa describes an exchange Arafat had with late Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1978. Ceausescu had just informed him that Moscow wanted him to pretend that the PLO was willing to renounce terrorism to in hopes of becoming a Palestinian state. Breznev thought that then President Carter would buy it: “But we are a revolution,” Arafat exploded...”We were born as a revolution and we should remain an unfettered revolution.” Arafat expostulated that the Palestinians lacked the tradition, unity and discipline to become a formal state [emph. mine]...and he was not willing to put any laws or other obstacles in the way of the Palestinian struggle to eradicate the state of Israel.(11) But Ceausescu prevailed on Arafat: Ceausescu...told [Arafat] that, if he would transform the PLO into a government-in-exile and would pretend to break with terrorism, the West would shower him with money and glory. ‘But you have to keep on pretending, over and over’...in the shadow of your government-in-exile you can keep as many terrorist groups as you want, as long as they are not publicly connected with your name.(12) Arafat was granted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for renouncing terrorism and promising to change the PLO charter’s goal of eliminating Israel. None of these promises have been kept, despite Arafat’s solemn oaths, made “over and over” as Ceausescu suggested. On September 13, 1993, the same day Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin signed the “Declaration of Principles” embodying those ideals for which he would later get the Nobel Prize, he explained his motives on Lebanese TV: Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.(13) As I mentioned earlier, a Palestinian state is not the PLO’s goal, never has been. Once you accept this, it is easy to understand why he rebuffed former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s extremely generous offer of statehood for Palestine. What Yasser Arafat Was Yasser Arafat was the father of modern terrorism. Arafat’s PLO pioneered in the use of terror tactics and has been both an inspiration and source of support for many of the terrorist groups that came afterward. He is responsible for countless acts of terrorism not only against Israel but also the United States, including: • The murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. This watershed event ushered in the age of modern terrorism. • The murder in May 1973 of American Ambassador to Sudan, Cleo A. Noel, Jr., his deputy, George Curtis, and Belgian charge d’affaires Guy Eid. The State Department by the way, has apparently tried to cover this up.(14) • The 1974 killing of 26 mostly 15 year-old girls taken hostage at school in Ma’alot, Israel. • The 1985 hijacking of Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro and murder of U.S. citizen Leon Klinghofer, a wheelchair-bound tourist who was shot then pushed overboard in front of his wife. • Popularizing the hijacking of airliners.(15) • Initial recruiter of Imad Mughniyah, today one of the most notorious international terrorists. Through his membership in Hezbollah, Mughniyah helped bring Iran into the terrorism business and is believed to be responsible for the 1982-83 Beirut Embassy and Marine barracks bombings. His meeting with Osama Bin Laden in the mid 1990s paved the way for a working • relationship between Hezbollah and al Qaeda and assisted al Qaeda in improving their bomb-making capability(16). • Over 300 attacks against the Israeli population in which civilians were killed, including deliberate targeting of children. • Over 1,300 Israelis killed in attacks since the signing of the Declaration of Principles (Oslo accords) in 1993.(17) Yasser Arafat was a thief. By all accounts Arafat has stolen billions of dollars in aid money meant for the Palestinian people. While the areas under PLO control have deteriorated precipitously, Arafat stashed away most, if not all, of the monetary aid intended for them.(18) • Almost one billion dollars collected in taxes from the Palestinian people was retained in investment accounts under Arafat’s name. • Astonishingly, in the Oslo accords, Israel agreed to pay Arafat the sales taxes collected from Palestinians in Israel, about $1 billion to date. This too went into Arafat’s personal accounts.(19) • According to the PLO’s own finance minister, Salam Fayyad, Arafat gave commodity monopolies to his friends, who in turn diluted their products and jacked up prices on the Palestinians. For example, the General Petroleum Corporation took fuel purchased from Israel and watered it down with kerosene. In addition to ripping off Palestinian drivers, the poor quality fuel ruined their cars’ engines. Arafat got kickbacks.(20) • Arafat received many gifts from the KGB, Saudi Arabia and others. Saddam allegedly gave him $50 million for his support in Gulf War I.(21) Yasser Arafat was a ruthless oppressor of the Palestinian people. Arafat established a Stalinist enclave among the Palestinians, a police state with the highest number of security forces per capita of any country in the world. Per Capita income has been cut approximately in half since the Palestinian Authority took power following the Oslo accords(22). The authority rules with an iron hand. Death sentences have been issued, for example, to Palestinians who willingly sell their own land to Israelis(23). Yasser Arafat was an alleged pederast. It is widely believed that he was homosexual. Among other evidence, the Romanians claim they took surveillance videos of Arafat engaged in orgies with his male bodyguards(24). However, internationally famous Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who has interviewed many foreign leaders including Arafat, revealed with evident disgust in a 1981 Playboy interview(25), that Arafat had a marked preference for young boys. Perhaps this is the blackmail Arafat’s horrid wife, Sufa, with whom he hadn’t lived for years, has used to garner herself a multi-million dollar annual “death benefit.” The proceeds of course, flow from his billions in ill-gotten gains. Many speculate that the cause of his death was AIDS. Arafat’s symptoms included blotchy skin, dementia, a depressed immune system and massive weight loss. The only other disease indicated by these symptoms, Leukemia, was ruled out. The only ones who can release Arafat’s medical records are his family, and they aren’t talking. The official line went from the ludicrous “he was poisoned by the Israelis” to the absurd: “A poor diet and gastrointestinal complications due to his long confinement in PLO headquarters imposed by the Israelis caused his health to deteriorate.” Of course, it was the Israelis fault, one way or the other. I vote AIDS. Terrorists from Syria to Iran to the wilds of Afghanistan widely championed Arafat and his cause as another front on the fight against the decadent and immoral “Great Satan.” It is indeed ironic that one of their most celebrated champions should succumb to a disease caused by activities they claim are symbolic of the decadent West: homosexuality. Yasser Arafat was despised by Middle Eastern leaders. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak referred to him once as “a son of a dog.” A Syrian defense minister called him the “son of 60,000 whores.”(26) Even his Soviet Bloc handlers found him repulsive: “I’ve never before seen so much cleverness, blood and filth all together in one man” Romanian General Constantin Munteaunu was reputed to have said. Ion Pacepa added: “I felt a compulsion to take a shower whenever I had been kissed by Arafat or even just shaken his hand.”(27) Yasser Arafat was leader of a murderous terrorist organization whose goals have not changed. As should be obvious from this analysis, the PLO leadership has long been committed to one goal: the obliteration of Israel. The poor Palestinians have been and remain nothing more than useful dupes for this grand scheme. I don’t understand why Western leaders even talk about Palestinian statehood. It would be nice to hope that Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s successor, may make a genuine attempt to secure a lasting peace. I doubt it. Abbas is a smooth talker and has the appearance of a kindly grandfather. In this regard he is indeed different from Arafat. But the ideological swamp from which both he and Arafat came is a toxic environment incapable of supporting sound mental health. As an early member of the PLO, Abbas has survived in this sewer a long time. You do not rise to the top by secretly harboring ambitions to betray such an organization’s goals. You get there by being the cleverest among many vile brutes. Furthermore, it’s hard to penetrate the logic of his hopeful supporters. Other terrorist organizations in PLO areas, like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or Hezbollah for example, which was implicated in the February 25 nightclub bombing(28), are characterized as being outside the PLO’s sphere of influence. If this is the case, how can any agreement with the PLO guarantee peace? If it is not the case, then why do the attacks continue despite Abbas’ repeated promises? Expect more of the same, except with polished excuses and apologies no doubt. The PLO was originally created as one front on a multi-front war to wrest the Middle East from Western control and turn it into a Soviet-inspired socialist paradise. This idea has been temporarily shelved due to rejection of Ba’athist/communist ideology throughout much of the Middle East and now the U.S. led war in Iraq. Whether the rise of radical Islam is yet another proxy in this war remains to be seen. There are some indications that may be the case, but it is beyond the breadth of this article to analyze such a question. In any event, dictatorial regimes have long planning horizons. As Yasser Arafat said in his interview with Oriana Fallaci: We don't want peace! We want war, victory. Peace for us means the destruction of Israel and nothing else. That which you call peace, is peace for Israel and the imperialists. For us it is injustice and shame. We will fight until we achieve victory. Decades if necessary, generations.(29) For now they are biding their time. For the long term, rest assured the PLO is every bit as determined to wipe Israel off the face of the map as they were the day eleven Israeli athletes were murdered in Munich. They don’t care about much else—never did. Footnotes: (1) BBC News, UK Edition, November 11, 2004. (2) "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist." Golda Meir, statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969. (3) As quoted by Joseph Farah in ‘Palestinian people do not exist’, WorldNetDaily.com, July 11, 2002. (4) ‘What Led to the Founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964?’ www.palestinefacts.org. (5) Joseph Farah, ‘Myths of the Middle East’, WorldNetDaily.com, October 11, 2000. (6) dunamai.com (/dunamai.com/articles/Islam/plo-charter.htm). (7) Please see for example ‘Regime Change Means Eradicating the Ba’ath Party’, DefenseWatch, (www.sftt.org), February 19, 2003. (8) Ray Cline and Yonah Alexander, Terrorism, the Soviet Connection, New York, Crane, Russak, 1984. The entire book is devoted to elucidating the link between Moscow and the PLO and provides irrefutable proof of their working relationship. (9) Jamie Glazov, ‘From Russia With Terror’, www.FrontPageMag.com, March 1, 2004. (10) Ion Pacepa, ‘The Arafat I knew, He hasn’t Changed Since His Days as a KGB-Backed Terrorist’, Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2002. (11) Glazov, “From Russia With Terror’. (12) Ibid. (13) Farah, ‘Palestinian people do not exist’. (14) Scott W. Johnson, “Who Murdered Cleo Noel?” www.FrontPageMag.com, November 18, 2003. (15) Glazov, ‘From Russia With Terror’. (16) Aaron Mannes, ‘Terrorism’s Godfather’, National Review Online, November 11, 2004. (17) Fatal Terrorist Attacks in Israel Since the Declaration of Principles (September 1993-January 31, 2005), http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/victims.html. (18) See for example, Lesley Stahl, ‘Arafat’s Billions’, CBSNews.com, November 9, 2003. See also Andy Geller ‘Arafat Got Paid at the Pump’, New York Post, November 15, 2004, p. 8. (19) Stahl (20) Ibid. (21) Ibid. (22) Ilan Berman, ‘Gangster Governance; Arafat’s Rogue Regime’, National Review Online, May 16, 2002 (23) Alexander Saffian, ‘Can Arabs Buy Land in Israel?’, The Middle East Quarterly, December 1997, Vol. IV; Number 4. (24) Ion Pacepa, Red Horizons: The True Story of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescus’ Crimes, Lifestyle, and Corruption, Regnery Publishing, Reprint Edition, April 1, 1990. (25) Interview Oriana Fallaci, Playboy, November 1981. (26) Tom Gross, ‘Arafat Gets the Di Treatment’, National Review Online, November 11, 2004. (27) Pacepa, Red Horizons. (28) ‘Suicide Bombing Outside Tel Aviv Nightclub Kills up to Five’, www.7online.com, ABC News, February 25, 2005. (29) Oriana Fallaci, Interview With History, Liveright, 1st Ed., 1976. Permalink for this entry: http://maggiesnotebook.blogspot.com/2007/03/yasser-arafat-ugly-legacy-continues.html Trackback URL for this entry: http://haloscan.com/tb/maggiesnotebook/2021372050768586320 Technorati Tags::Israel Palestine Jihad PLO Hamas Fatah Syria Yasser Arafat PLO Charter Iran UN Resolution 242