Arafat may not survive next 24 hours

[IndianaGreen]

Arafat may not survive next 24 hours
By Lawrence Smallman

Wednesday 10 September 2003, 17:41 Makka Time, 14:41 GMT

The future of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat is hanging by a thread, according to senior diplomats.

Israeli health minister Danny Narveh told a number of UN and other officials during an informal chat on Wednesday that Arafat must be physically removed from his Ramallah base.

In a stark warning amid increasing tension, one of the western diplomats at the Narveh briefing described the next 24 hours as critical ... and he made it clear his express concern focussed on Arafat's personal safety.

On condition of anonymity, the offical told Aljazeera.net on Wednesday that Yasir Arafat may not remain in the Palestinian territories once Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returns from India.

Sharon is due back in Israel by 01:00 (GMT) on Thursday.

“What concerns me is that Yasir Arafat may not even be around in 24 hours," added the source.

Al-Jazeera

[liberalnurse]

1. My first thought was the vision of

Cusaya and Uday on a slab.....We've set the bar.....

[Cappurr]

2. Arafat is not Sadaam...

He will never leave on his own nor will he go into hiding. I certainly hope this report is overblown because if anything happens to Arafat the whole stinking mess will blow up.

[the_sam]

7. Unfortunately

I have a feeling that's exactly what Sharon wants.

[Tinoire]

3. Awww damn Indy

Just as I was about to go to bed and thought the news upstairs was bad enough.

We are BENT on having WWIV

No sooner does Bin Laden come out with a new tape sirectly addressing Jihad and the Palestinian question do we have this.

Nice going idiot hawks and all their enablers & defenders. Nice going.

People better get down on their knees and pray to God, Allah, trees, birds or whatever that this does not happen!

[hadrons]

4. Israeli will not kill its scapegoat ....

what will they do when they don't have "It's all Yasir Arafat fault!!! ... It's all Yasir Arafat fault!!!" to blame when nothing changes after he's killed

[jos]

6. Exactly

They need him around so they can discredit him.

[the_sam]

9. Not Necessarily

Killing him could be advantageous.

If they killed him, massive violence would erupt, and Israel would respond with massive repression, as usual. This could be used to justify a land grab.

Also, by killing him, they could potentially upset the balance of power and foster in-fighting between Fatah and its allies and Hamas and its allies.

[the_sam]

8. Kinda like Clinton

;-)

[Equinox]

10. They'll do what republicans do....

They Blame someone who's out of office like Clinton.

Arafat can still be a scapegoat being dead.


"He called his soldiers from the grave..."

I can hear it now.

[rini]

5. wow

what an unbiased source!

[Muddleoftheroad]

11. Beat me to it

Al jazeerah, all pro-terrorist all the time.

[Violet_Crumble]

12. Really?

Me, I'm wondering what Rini defines as biased, seeing she very recently posted something from the Daniel Pipes mailing list....

Obviously you must read Al Jazeerah much more thoroughly than I do. Can you point out where it's 'all pro-terrorist all the time'? On the few times I've been there, I've missed that permeating throughout everything...

Violet...

[newyorican]

13. same shit, different day...

"DUs oldest profession, attacking the source" - DrDon

wow

[Scurrilous]

14. Cursed pro-terrorist Al-jazeera!

They spelled the Health Ministers name wrong! I think his name is Danny Naveh..not Narveh. Obviously a case of bias.

[Herschel]

15. Al-jazeera

Aligns themselves with terror. The source should be banned here, similar to Jihad Unspun.

[newyorican]

16. Where is "here"?

DU? Israel? USA? The whole world? :shrug:

[Herschel]

27. Banned at DU

Their assistance to bin Laden is revolting. They give this murderer a vehicle to promote himself and his cause.

[Darranar]

28. I seem to remember...

a number of American TV channels also broadcasting those tapes - and with English translations. Are they, too, revolting?

[Herschel]

32. You see

Al-jazeera has some knowledge potentially helpful in capturing this animal. They instead choose to aid him. Our media receives this second hand.

[Darranar]

33. They do?

I sincerely doubt it. Where would they get such information?

[Herschel]

34. They have avenues of obtaining the information

This could be helpful in locating bin Laden. They would not cooperate with forces searching for bin Laden.

[Darranar]

35. The US has avenues of...

tracking Bin Laden, too. It's been two years siince 9/11, and they still don't seem to have made any progress. Hmm, maybe the Bush Admin isn't trying very hard? Just a hunch.

[chapter32]

17. FYI,

Aljazeera appears to be free from the constraints of censorship, corporate and governmental control and is not the typical crap you read and post from which are owned and controlled by an elite corporate political culture that tries to mobilize folks behind a corporate pro-military and pro-war agenda.

You can claim Aljazeera and the other growing Arab networks are biased. That is to say that it simply can not ignore a growing pan-Arab sentiment opposed to neo-colonialism. And, that doesn’t make it “aligned with terror”.

[Resistance]

23. as another FYI

the moderator here was shown to be mistaken on Jihan Unspun's supposed 'alignment' with terror, and never clearly demonstrated any affiliation with terrorist organizations (which was the original charge against them).

[Gimel]

18. A conduit

While al Jazeera is obviously biased, it does at times try to present the East to the West, and free itself of domination of any political group or government. The videos of bin Laden and otner statements come through al Jazeera, so it's made a name for itself. A source with some credibility, but as you've noted, not unbiased.

[durutti]

19. Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera is no more biased than the U.S. media are jingoistic. The Zionists don't like it just because it isn't afraid to criticize them like the servile U.S. media are.

[Resistance]

21. well said durutti

the way I see it, Al Jazeera presents a legitimate perspective that has been effectively marginalized and shut out of the mainstream U.S. media.

[chapter32]

22. Is this a response to #15 or #17?

Because poster #15 states “Al-jazeera aligns themselves with terror. The source should be banned here”.

Poster #15 is not talking about simple “bias” factor. His message portrays the notion that you must be “aligned with terror” if you are not buying the propaganda he likes to hear.

“You are either with us or you are with the terrorists”.

[Resistance]

24. Apparently

Bush's famous rallying cry fell on ears beyond just the Republican party.

[durutti]

20. Hey, while we're at it...

Let's ban the Jerusalem Post, Israel News Network, us-israel.org, and all the other Zionist propanda outlets who align themselves with Israeli state terrorism.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Darranar]

25. Al-jazeera...

is indeed not the most unbiased sorce. However, this is very interesting - not to mention scary.

[tinnypriv]

29. If al-Jazeera ain't good enough, how about the Israeli press?

This was reported at about 8am UK time, 3am EDT:

http://images.maariv.co.il/channels/1/ART/538/358.html

The headline has changed now, but was "Majority: Expel Arafat". It is now, "Arafat deserves explusion".

The original article didn't mention that the decision was taken only "in principle", with details to be worked out later. It said that the Defense Committee of the Israeli Cabinet had voted as a majority to expel Arafat. Now it says that majority voted in principle to expel Arafat.

Whether the original article was wrong and this is an update, I dunno. The original article was listed as "breaking" news.

I think it has been perfectly obvious that Israel has only been waiting for the right moment to get rid of Arafat. Ma'ariv and their correspondents must have had wind of that, since they posted a personal poll to this effect just yesterday.

[Darranar]

30. Or the JTA?

Israel moves to expel Arafat

http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=13192&intcategoryid=1

[tinnypriv]

31. "Israel believes Arafat encourages terrorist attacks"

Damn, that is some HARD EVIDENCE they got there!

:eyes:

Time to "expel" every American who called for Afghanistan to be turned into a "parking lot" right after 9/11. I saw a lot of THAT.

[LeftistGorilla]

36. Israel believes lots of things....

like WMD are in Syria and Saddam being in lebanon....

[StandWatie]

37. they suck..

One reason the mossad warnings about hijacked planes was ignored is because they churn out so much paranoid horseshit that intelligence services around the globe just throw it all in trash rather than try and find the gold nugget in the pile of garbage. The fact that people think these people are competant at all is a propaganda coup.

[Resistance]

39. I see your point

but I am not so sure that calling mossad incompetent is very accurate.

[StandWatie]

41. quite accurate

It catastrophically failed in 73, pointed out "Arafat" in Lebanon about a bazillion times leading them to destroy most of Beirut without ever actually hitting him, their record is abysmal.

[Resistance]

46. well

you seem more educated than I on the subject. Do you have any good book suggestions? I believe Benny Morris has written a decent one.

[StandWatie]

50. Israel Shahak had a long essay on the subject

They screw up far more times than they get things right and since they are one of the most assassination happy inteligence agencies in the world it has fatal consequenses often.

[Darranar]

47. Didn't they manage...

to smuggle out some warships from France?

I heard that from a rabidly pro-Israel friend of mine; its accuracy is most certainly questionable.

[StandWatie]

51. Operation Noah's Ark

Yeah, they stole some boats.

on edit: actually they had already paid for them so it wasn't "stealing" exactly.

[Darranar]

52. Well, that's something...

a successful mark on their record.

[StandWatie]

54. I don't mean they are the keystone cops

They do get some things right, but what's scary is how many things they get wrong and kill people over it.

[tinnypriv]

44. Mofaz "urged" the cabinet to "either kill or expel" Arafat (Yediot)

Naturally that is being ignored by CNN and the like. Only AP has made any effort to find out whether that is true.

Update:

Israeli security sources "assume" that the United States will stop the expulsion plans at the last minute (Ma'ariv)

[drdon326]

45. "either kill or expel" Arafat ??

thats a tough choice.

[Herschel]

38. Exciting news

Israeli Troops Seize High Ground Overlooking Arafat's Compound

Israeli troops seized the top floor of the Palestinian Authority Culture Ministry building on Thursday, overlooking PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's Mukata compound in Ramallah as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with top ministers to weigh Israel's reaction to two suicide bombings.

cut

But on Thursday, Israeli troops assumed a new position, taking over the seventh floor of the Culture Ministry, which gives Israel a good view of what is left of Arafat's compound and raises speculations that Israel might be ready to exile him, Israel Radio reported.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=%5CForeignBureaus%5Carchive%5C200309%5CFOR20030911h.html

[jos]

40. Wow!

What a maneuver! I'd compare it to Doug's landing at Inchon!:eyes:

[StandWatie]

43. yeah, the IDF get some heroic tasks

:eyes:

[Darranar]

42. Exciting news?

Horrible news! Killing arafat, or expelling him, would send the peace process down the drain.

[Muddleoftheroad]

48. How much further can it go?

It's already down the drain.

[Darranar]

49. That's true...

but do you disagree that killing/expelling Arfat would make it even worse?

[Resistance]

53. it may be down the drain

you might find agreement with me on that point - but to call the recent events "exciting news" is pretty tasteless don't you think?