Files belonging to the Palestinian Authority’s CFO discovered by Israeli intelligence directly link Arafat and the rest of his institutionalized thugocracy to the coalitional terror campaign being waged against Israel, FOXNews is reporting.
No surprise here, of course — unless you happen to be Justin Raimondo or Jak King (who likely are already blaming this whole “dubious document business” on the evil western hegemons who invented the aluminum filing cabinet).
What this discovery and disclosure does mean, though, is that the latest Israeli incursion into Ramallah really was (at least partially) a fact-finding mission. Which might further suggest (please let it be so!) that the Bushies‘ recent foot-shuffling may have been a calculated stall, after all — a way to play the two-faced-diplomacy game right back against the Arab League while allowing Israel time to seize paper-trail evidence. (Counterfeitting plates were also recovered from Arafat’s compound)
Only, instead of using pre-existing doors to enter P.A. offices, the Israelis created their own more convenient entry ways (with mortar shells, and such). Sweet.
Hey, Chairmen. There’s always exile.
[related: Victor Davis Hanson’s “Back to the Future,” NRO; Kristol and Kagen, “The Detour,” The Weekly Standard]
In the article you linked to Powell said exiling Arafat wouldn’t change anything so “Let’s deal with him where he is.”. Would Secretary Powell mean, um, deal with him permanently – *winkwinknudgenudge*? Probably not, but it’s hard to tell which flag our leaders are putting up for the Israelis right now.
I loved Arafat’s aides complaining that Arafat can’t call a cease fire while he’s under siege. Uh, he couldn’t or wouldn’t when he wasn’t under siege so what possible difference could that make?
I have to say, the possibility that Arafat was counterfeiting money so he could pay the families of the sickos he was encouraging to blow themselves up and murder as many civilians as possible just makes the whole thing even more disgusting than it already was – I wouldn’t have thought that possible.
Myria
It’s really interesting, Myria. On the one hand, you have Powell on every morning show this morning, saying we need to work with Arafat (with whom we have a “relationship.” Ugh.) You’ve got Bush, however, defending Sharon very regularly—and you’ve got Rumsfeld clearly fuming about Islamist agression, saying everything short of “the whole Arab political culture is the real culprit” for unrest in the world.
It’s probably wishful thinking, but I see in Rumsfeld and Bush a tendency toward laying the blame directly on Arafats doorstep, and so I wonder if all this “confusion” isn’t calculated to give Israel time to round up militants, destroy the PA infrastructure, and find evidence tying Arafat to some other countries.