Latest Palestinian Fabrication Claims Peres Admits To Arafat Assassination

Nobel prize winning terrorist Arafat is in the news again.

This time, the Arabs are pointing to a New York Times interview Israeli President Peres did with the New York Times, where apparently in front of the whole world Peres claimed that Israel is responsible for the death of Arafat.

Thus Tawfiq Tirawi, head of Palestinian General Intelligence, is quoted that
Peres's Confession Is New Evidence Added To President Arafat's Assassination File

Head of the Palestinian investigation committee on president Yasser Arafat`s death Tawfeeq Tirawi said the confession that was made by the Israeli president Shimon Peres is new evidence that could be added to the lawsuit file.

He said: “investigation shall continue and we will request Peres to reaffirm his statements that have consolidated the doubts we stated before investigation committees”.

In a first statement by an Israeli official, Peres told the “New Times” last Friday that Yasser Arafat should not have been assassinated.

Naturally, the upstanding terrorists of Hamas want Israel prosecuted based on the Peres confession:

Meanwhile, Hamas movement has called for prosecuting Israel after Peres`s implicit confession. Spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said: “Peres`s statements in which he said the assassination of Arafat was a mistake is an Israeli confession, putting an end to speculations over this issue and holding Israel responsible for the assassination crime”.

Well, what did Peres actually say? Let's take a look at The New York Times interviewn interview with Shimon Peres on Obama, Iran and the Path to Peace:

During the several months
over which Peres and I spoke, the conflict between Israel and Hamas intensified. In response to rocket fire from Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip, Israel assassinated Hamas’s military commander and launched a bombing campaign that resulted in widespread international censure and ended in a cease-fire engineered by the United States and Morsi. In some cases in the past, Peres expressed opposition to Israel’s use of assassination as a weapon to achieve its goals. He opposed the killing of Khalil al-Wazir, the deputy of the P.L.O. leader Yasir Arafat, in Tunis in 1988, and the targeted elimination of the spiritual founder of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, in Gaza in 2004. He also protected Arafat from plots to kill or deport him. This time, Peres expressed strong support for the Israeli operation. “This wasn’t a war or a military operation, but rather an educational lesson for Hamas,” he told me. “We acted in order to explain to Hamas that it has to decide on one or the other. You want to build houses? No problem. You want to build missile bases inside those houses? Then we’ll relate to those houses as targets for our aircraft. [emphasis added]

Then, after few questions about Hamas, the topic returns to Arafat:

You didn’t think that Arafat should be assassinated.
No. I thought it was possible to do business with him. Without him, it was much more complicated. With who else could we have closed the Oslo deal? With who else could we have reached the Hebron agreement? On the other hand, I tried to explain to him, for hours on end, a complete educational course: how to be a true leader. We sat together, with me eating from his hand. It took courage. I told him he must be like Lincoln, like Ben-Gurion: one nation, one gun, not innumerable armed forces with each firing in a different direction. At first, Arafat refused, he said, “La, la, la” [Peres does a fairly convincing imitation of Arafat saying “no” in Arabic], but later he said, “O.K.” He lied right to my face, without any problem [regarding promises to fight Palestinian militias and insurgencies].

There is no mention of polonium or anything of the current Palestinian accusation of an Israeli attempt to kill Arafat, for the simple reason that this is not the issue. Peres is discussing history and Israeli policy in general, and there is no reference to the alleged assassination of Arafat by polonium for Peres to either confirm or deny.

That will not stop the umbrage of Palestinian terrorists at the thought that a leading terrorists was in turn killed.

But the simple fact is that Peres is neither confirming or denying Israel's involvement in Arafat's death.

Hat tip: Elder of Ziyon

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