- The massacre of 500 innocent Palestinians in Jenin has
found its way into Islamic terrorist folklore but it never happened. It
was part of the political deception carefully crafted by Yasser Arafat
and the Palestinian Authority.
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- In the spring of this year when the Israeli military
surrounded Jenin and lost 25 soldiers to carefully planned booby-traps
and suicide bombers, the only story that excited the European media was
the one from Arafat's Compound.
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- According to Arafat and his inner circle, the Israeli
military had massacred over 500 Palestinian non-combatants - innocent men,
women and children.
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- The story reverberated throughout the Islamic world where
there was an appetite for any news of an Israeli-inspired atrocity. European
journalists were quick to accept the word of Arafat, Hamas, Islamic Jihad
and other groups that live off myths and practice deception.
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- The United Nations, not known for a sanguine approach
to conflict situations - Rwanda and Srebrenica being just two - was quickly
on the Palestinian bandwagon.
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- Televised interviews with UN personnel and some of the
aid workers loosely connected with that organisation swiftly predicted
what Arafat and his cohorts had claimed.
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- Now the UN has debunked the story of the massacre at
Jenin but the fact is that history is often written when events happens
- the kind of distorted history that fuels anger and revenge.
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- The thesis of the makers of conflict is that one should
never sacrifice a good story for truth. Myths are much more formidable
weapons than truth for those seeking to foment incitement and hatred. Deception
is a weapon of choice.
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- The myth-making and deception by the Palestinian leadership
in its alliance with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, the Al-Aqsa
Martyrs Brigade - and countries such as Iran, Iraq and Syria - has succeeded
in influencing international opinion - especially in Europe.
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- But it is not only Europe that is vulnerable. Large swathes
of Muslims across the United States have no qualms about supporting groups
like Hamas.
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- Through Mosques in the US, large sums of money flow to
groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
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- The myth makers in militant Islam have assured the mythology
they have shaped has a place within Islam worldwide.
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- Simply put, it is a thesis that Israel is the aggressor
and any action by Hamas - be it the murder of students or children - is
justified.
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- President George Bush and his close advisers have decided
that the UN Security Council had better realign itself with reason and
not misplaced emotions emanating from the Arab world.
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- The White House has privately told the UN Secretary General,
Kofi Annan, the time for unqualified support for the Palestinian Authority
and a reluctance to condemn its role in terrorism is over.
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- A State Department official was this week given the task
of making it clear to Kofi Annan that the UN had too often abdicated its
responsibility to condemn Islamic terrorism - particularly atrocities committed
against innocent Israelis by groups such as Hamas.
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- Close advisers to President Bush have told him that the
UN has, by failing to confront violence from Hamas and others, enabled
Arab leaders to either sit on the political sidelines or feel comfortable
providing financial support for organizations bent on not only killing
Israelis but Westerners.
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- The myth making by Arafat and his inner circle has had
its greatest impact within Europe and the European media.
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- In Europe, the journalistic tendency it to see politics
like a football game with the instinct to support whoever is deemed "the
underdog."
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- Arafat has painted himself and those around him as the
underdogs and
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- used lies and deception to achieve his goals.
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- Now, perhaps, with the truth revealed about Jenin, those
who give themselves to the "underdog thesis" might like top pay
a visit to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and examine the videos of
the public celebrations by Hamas supporters after international students
were murdered.
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- In the weeks ahead another myth may emerge - Saddam the
peacemaker.
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- Saddam appears to be inviting weapons inspectors back
into Iraq. Like Arafat he has always been the master of deception.
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- The "invitation" to allow weapons inspectors
back into Iraq, as it turns out, is not really an invitation but merely
an opportunity to discuss an invitation.
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- Saddam knows that international opinion is fickle. He
can see that King Abdullah of Jordan and the Saudi Royal family have little
appetite for a US-led attempt to overthrow him and that the Europeans have
made a career out of fence-sitting.
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- He also thrives on the mythology that the real problem
is not his chemical weapons, brutality or megalomania but Israeli aggression.
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- King Abdullah of Jordan made that point for Saddam on
his latest visit to the White House.
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- If that other myth maker, Osama Bin-Laden is still alive,
he will at least reflect on one successful aspect of his recruitment policy.
The Palestinian myth suits everyone in the Arab world. Bin-Laden latterly
attached himself to it but so have so many others.
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- The reality of the plight of the Palestinian people is
sacrificed on the altar of myth making and so were the lives of the students
this week in the Hebrew University
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- Martin Dillon is a world authority on Russian and East
European intelligence and the Ireland conflict. He is also the author of
the bestsellers: The Shankill Butchers (Random House); The Dirty War (Random
House) and God and the Gun (Orion). This trilogy is also published by Routledge,
New York. His books are also available on Amazon.com
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- Martin Dillon is also an editor and writer with
<http://www.Globe-Intel.net>www.Globe-Intel.net
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