Israel Matzav

Realpolitique and dealing with terrorists

Atlas Shrugs has a post this morning in which she sets out some more of the historical background behind the murder of two US diplomats and one Belgian diplomat at the hands of the Black September terrorist organization on the orders of Yasser Arafat. The fact that Arafat was behind the murders was no secret - WorldNetDaily exposed it as far back as January 2001 (and others clearly suspected it by 1985-86), and I reported on it in 2001 to my (pre-blog) Matzav mailing list.

In fact, in 1985 and 1986, Congress requested then-Attorney General Ed Meese to investigate Arafat's complicity in the murders of the diplomats.

On Feb. 12, 1986, some 47 U.S. senators, including now-Vice President Al Gore, petitioned Meese "to assign the highest priority to completing this review, and to issue an indictment of Yasser Arafat if the evidence so warrants."

However, the one critical piece of evidence needed to warrant an indictment -- the tape recordings -- was not produced by the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency or the State Department.

"These tapes do exist," claims Welsh. "I participated in their production. But no one has ever been willing to come forward and acknowledge their existence."

Welsh recently received responses from the three separate agencies to Freedom of Information Act requests for the recordings or transcripts.

"I had written them (CIA, State and NSA) on three different dates," says Welsh. "Guess what? All three agencies just happened to have all written their replies on the same date -- Dec. 21, 2000."

Back in 1973, Welsh had received spontaneous transcripts of the dialogue between Arafat and his subordinates. But, under NSA protocol, he was not permitted to keep copies. Under normal procedure, he expected copies of the final transcripts and tapes to arrive on his desk for further analysis. They never came.

"Things were recorded but never arrived at my desk," he recalls. "I know they were recorded because I was receiving simultaneous reports from a collection site. The warning I drafted for the State Department was based on those reports."

Over the years, there have been reports that the Israelis also had tapes of Arafat ordering the executions of the U.S. diplomats and that Jerusalem provided copies to Nixon. Gen. Ariel Sharon said in 1995 that Israeli intelligence gave tapes proving Arafat's culpability in the murders to the U.S State Department and White House in March 1973.

Arafat reportedly ordered the eight gunmen to surrender peacefully to the Sudanese authorities. Two were released for "lack of evidence." Later, in June 1973, the other six were found guilty of murdering the three diplomats. They were sentenced to life imprisonment and released 24 hours later to the PLO.

During their trial, commander Salim Rizak, also known as Abu Ghassan, told the court: "We carried out this operation on the orders of the Palestine Liberation Organization and should only be questioned by that organization."

Sudanese Vice President Mohammed Bakir said, after questioning the six: "They relied on radio messages from Beirut Fatah headquarters, both for the order to kill the three diplomats and for their own surrender Sunday morning."

"I know Yasser Arafat was a direct player in the murder of our diplomats and so has every U.S. administration since Richard Nixon's," says Welsh.

Welsh also made a prediction, which turned out to be only slightly off base:

"When Arafat dies, possibly the tapes will be acknowledged, but not released," predicts Welsh. "Oil, oil, oil. That's the big fear. If Arafat were to be destroyed politically -- and this would do it -- the Arab world would reply with a boycott we would not be able to deal with."

Atlas ends with something that I found surprising coming from her:

It's all very well for the US to assume to attempt to broker a peace treaty between Rabin and Arafat, but if it had been common knowledge that Arafat--a world terrorist and no freedom fighter--had ordered the murder of US officials, would Clinton and the US been so ready to push Israel into the Oslo Accords?

Atlas is one of the most savvy and least naive people I know (and one of the nicest - at least over the phone and in email). She is also one of the most committed people I know on behalf of Israel's well being. Because of all that, I was shocked to see her asking the question above. Would Clinton and the US have been so ready to push Israel into Oslo? Absolutely if they thought it was in the US's interest. BUT - and there are a couple of big buts here:

1. No one pushed Israel into Oslo. Israel's own leftist politicians pushed Israel into Oslo and then lied to their own countrymen and bribed their own Knesset members (remember Gonen Segev's cabinet seat and Alex Goldfarb's Mitsubishi?) to make it seem to work.

2. As much as I dislike Clinton, he genuinely believed he was doing what Israel wanted him to do in everything he did regarding Oslo. There was no sense in him being more Catholic than the Pope. If Israel's elected government thought this was a good idea, why should Clinton have objected?

The Israeli government knew who Arafat was in 1993, and knew that they were dealing with a murderer. Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin, and their gang of academics (Uri Savir, Ron Pundak etc.) decided to deal with Arafat anyway, in pursuit of their holy grail of giving the land of Israel away to the Arabs. That's what post-Zionism is all about.

As far as the Americans go, does anyone really think the Baker - Hamilton Commission doesn't know that Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Mahmoud Ahmedinadinnerjacket of Iran are murderers who would wipe out all of Israel in a second? Did they recommend dealing with them anyway?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:30 PM