Israel Matzav

Arafat asked Hamas to carry out 'military operations'

It probably won't come as news to most Israelis that Yasser Arafat asked Hamas to carry out terror attacks in the aftermath of the 2000 Camp David summit. After all, when the IDF raided the Mukhata in 2003, it found documentation of Arafat paying Hamas for the very same terror attacks. But the admission by Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar that Hamas acted in concert with Arafat was enough to put the story on the front page of the print edition of the JPost on Wednesday.

Former Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat instructed Hamas to launch terror attacks against Israel when he realized that the peace talks weren't going anywhere, Mahmoud Zahar, one of the Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip, revealed on Tuesday.

"President Arafat instructed Hamas to carry out a number of military operations in the heart of the Zionist entity after he felt that his negotiations with the Israeli government then had failed," Zahar told students and lecturers at the Islamic University in Gaza City.

Zahar did not say when and how Arafat instructed Hamas back then to launch the "military operations" – most of which were suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians.

However, it is believed that Arafat issued the order to Hamas following the failure of the Camp David summit in 2000.

This was the first time that a senior Hamas official disclosed that some of the suicide bombings in Israel during the second intifada, which erupted 10 years ago, were ordered by Arafat.

Until now it was widely believed that Arafat had ordered his Fatah militiamen to carry out terror attacks on Israel.

And it took from January 2001 to June 2002 for the Bush administration - which was basically sympathetic with Israel - to figure out that Arafat was the problem. Actually, if today's reports are correct, that's about how long it took the Obama administration to figure out that Abu Bluff is the problem.

Hmmm.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:40 PM