Arafat’s legacy an inspiration to everyone seeking freedom, justice
By Ray Hanania
I met Yasser Arafat many times over the years. He was a true hero, a champion of justice and a champion to free his people, the Palestinians, who lived under the violent and oppressive yoke of the militant Israeli regime.
Israel survives today as a result of a veneer of orchestrated propaganda and lies protected by the United States Congress which functions in a headlock placed on it by AIPAC, the pernicious and evil American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Members of Congress are not free to express their views when it comes to Israel and its atrocities against the Palestinian Christians and Muslims. Most of the Congress members are bought off by AIPAC’s network of pro-Israel PACs, hundreds of them that funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to the congress members in exchange for their blind support of Israel. Congress is bought and paid for by Israel lobbyists to ignore and close their eyes to Israel’s human rights abuses and violence that is designed to purge Palestine of Christians and Muslims.
Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat shake hands at 1993 White House peace signing with President Clinton. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
It is ironic and shocking that the Congress, which is overwhelming Christian, will accept money to ignore the cries of other Christians in Palestine whose lands are being stolen, whose rights are being compromised, and whose lives are massacred all in the name of some political zionist agenda to create a state for Jewish people in much the same way that may past fascist regimes tried to create racist Apartheid states for Germans.
Critics mainly Israelis and blind supporters of Israel accuse Arafat of being a terrorist, calling him a murderer. Yet who is the real terrorist?
You want to know about true terrorists, individuals who personally directed the murder of innocent men, women and children? All you have to do is look at Israel’s government, starting with the top, the prime ministers whom the people of Israel elected in an embrace of violence, murder and terrorism.
Autographed picture presented to Ray Hanania in 1995 by Yasser Arafat during a meeting at the United Nations. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania
Israel elected four terrorists as their prime ministers to lead their country, not including several other violence prone activists including the current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who ordered the massacre of civilians in Gaza Strip and is still doing it today.
Menachem Begin, one of the most vicious terrorists who led the massacre of 100 women and children at Dear Yassin in April 1948, throwing the bodies in a water well to hide them from the prying eyes of the Red Cross. Children, pregnant mothers and old men and women were shot or had their throats cut. He was the head of the Irgun Tzvai Leuhmi, a terrorist group in Palestine — yes, at a time when the word Palestine was recognized and used by the world. Among his compatriots was the father of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a disgraceful Chicago Mayor who hated Arabs and Palestinians and refused any dialogue with Palestinians.
Terrorist Menachem Begin served as Israel’s prime minister from 1977 to 1981, never punished for his terrorist crimes.
Yitzhak Shamir, one of Begin’s sinister blood thirst cohorts, was the head of the terrorist organization the Lehi, “fighters for Israel.” Shamir led the underground terrorist assault against the Palestinians and Arabs and also against the British soldiers. Although the world speaks about the atrocities of ISIS in beheading and murdering innocent people, it was Shamir who pushed the line of violence to the ISIS extremes we know today. On many occasions, Shamir’s terrorists would kidnap British soldiers, young men 18 and 19 years of age who did nothing but proudly wear the uniform of the British Army. He had their throats cut. They were hung. They were shot in tiebacks of their heads. Had they been given time, his squad of blood thirsty killers would have beheaded their prisoners, too.
Terrorist Yitzhak Shamir served as Israel’s prime minister 1983 – 1984, and 1990 -1992.
Ehud Barak was a member of a Mossad murder squad sent into Lebanon to target and kill leaders of Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He dressed up in woman’s clothing to disguise his murderous assignments and killed many Palestinian intellectuals and activists solely because they were outspoken critics of Israel’s atrocities. Barak, who was part of a gang of killers, silenced these voices to bury the truth about Israel. He murdered Kamal Nasser, the Palestinian journalist and poet who served as the PLO spokesman who was forced out of his home in Ramallah, Palestine. He was murdered as an added prize along with two others who were accused of orchestrating the Olympic Massacre including with Kamal Adwan and Mohammed Yousef Najjar, the grandfather of Ammar Campa-Najjar a candidate for Congress in 2020 in California. Barak was involved in other missions throughout his career targeting individuals accused of crimes but never brought before a legal system to justify the killings.
Terrorist Ehud Barak served as Israel’s prime minister from 1999 to 2001.
Yasir Arafat in the 1970s. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia. Kamal Nasser is second from left.
Ariel Sharon is one of the most vicious killers who served in Israel’s military. As a soldier and commander he ordered and participated in the massacre of many Palestinian civilians. Among his most notable massacres and acts of terrorism was his role in leading and orchestrating the massacre of Palestinians effigies at Sabra and Shatilla in 1982 during his invasion of Lebanon where he directed mass destruction and killings of Palestinians from the south to Beirut. But his first warcrime that was documented came in 1953 when he ordered the killing of 69 Palestinian civilians in a border village Israel wanted to raze called Qibya near Jordan. He ordered a curfew and as the civilians returned to their homes from work in other areas of occupied Palestine, they were shot and killed in cold blood. Many were speared by Israeli soldiers and tortured with machetes. In 2002, after the murder of Rabin caused the collapse of the peace process, Sharon intentionally provoked violence among the Palestinians by leading an army of 1,000 armed Israeli police officers to occupy the Haram al-Sharif surrounding the Dome of the Rock declaring that it would always be the capitol of Israel “for the Jews.” This achieved it’s goal of provoking protests that turned into violence when Israeli soldiers were ordered by Sharon to shoot to kill the protestors. Those killings sparked the 2nd Intifada that only caused further violence and death. And, Sharon is believed to have been involved in a Mossad plan to assassinate Arafat, whom he tried to assassinate 8 previous times but failed. This time, using a radioactive poison, like those used by Russian spies, Arafat was infected and sickened and then died on Nov. 11, 2004 after being rushed to hospital in France.
Terrorist Ariel Sharon served as Israel’s prime minister from 2001 to 2003.
To read my tribute in the Arab News Newspaper to Yasser Arafat, a hero and icon of freedom and justice, click here.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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