Israel may be dragged kicking and screaming to the signing ceremony, which will authorize the dismemberment of Israel and the surrender of a large part of the state to Palestinian terrorists, but no self-respecting Jew should want to witness that shameful performance. Should an American president use Israel, America’s only reliable ally in the Middle East, as a sacrificial lamb to prop up a sagging popularity rating? No matter how dazzling the staging of the Hollywood-like ceremony will be, should a self-respecting Jew be part of it? What will future generations have to say about such disloyal behavior?

While postponement announcements are leaked to the media, the signing ceremony in Washington is secretly being prepared. The postponements may be aimed at trying to confuse those opposed to the disgrace of an American president shaking hands again with Arafat, a proven embezzler, liar, thief and terrorist. The best bet is that the signing ceremony will happen on September 14, regardless of the fact that 80 percent of the Israelis are opposed to the new agreement called "Oslo II."

They learned it from the Bible: Pharaoh used Jews to be "overseers" over the Jewish slaves. Hitler copied it by forcing Jews to be kapos to terrorize Jewish death camp inmates. Now, President Clinton has his own Jews to do the dirty work when it comes to leading Israel into suicidal agreements: "peace negotiator" Dennis Ross, the holdover from the Bush-Baker days; and Martin Indyk, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

In recent days, when the secret, 200-page Taba agreement was initialed by Peres and Arafat, Ross camped out in Eilat, pressuring the Israelis, day and night, to be ready with their agreement for the planned September 14 public relations production on the White House Lawn. Ross did not even allow the Israelis time out for the seven days of shiva for the victims of the latest Palestinian attack. Neither does Ross heed the fact that Israel’s President Ezer Weizman and 80 percent of the Israeli population are opposed to continuing the negotiations.

Even within the Rabin Cabinet there were votes against the agreement, which will return Israel to the "Auschwitz borders" of 1967, from which the Jordanian war of aggression against Israel was launched. The agreement will also make a large portion of Israel’s population sitting ducks for freely marauding Arab murderers. The issue is therefore no longer "for peace or against peace"; it is simply, "for security or against security."

Those who are backing Rabin’s plan simply do not think that defending Jews from bloodshed is their headache ... Who would have thought that we Jews would ever see a Jewish government so callous about questions of life and death for the Jewish people?

But then again, Peres does everything by stealth:

In the official "joint statement," on one page of the 200-page agreement, Arafat is identified as "President Arafat," a title that in the past Israel has always strenuously ruled out because it implies the existence of a Palestinian state, which neither Israel nor the United States has ever agreed to. Why does Peres allow this serious slip? Is he trying to smuggle in a Palestinian state by the use of this illegitimate term?

The leading Evangelical Christian in this country, Rev. Elwood McQuaid, head of Friends of Israel, wrote to President Weizman in the name of 50,000 churches: "I would encourage you to counsel President Clinton and the American administration to recommend delaying further talks in view of the critical situation in your country. We will be contacting him to urge that he delay the planned signing ceremonies in Washington until the matters are reviewed."

The Middle East Christian Committee, representing the Middle East Christian minorities in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and South Sudan, wrote to President Weizman: "In the name of 18 million Christians in the Middle East, we urge you to call on your government and President Clinton’s administration to postpone such a dangerous agreement until representatives of Middle East Christians will be consulted and their rights secured."

Voices for Israel, a coalition of Jews and Christians, encompassing some 160 organizations in this country, wrote to President Weizman: "We agree with you that what is needed is an immediate and comprehensive reassessment by the government; we also believe that going forward without more of a public consensus will only bring problems. We thank you for standing with the majority of American supporters of Israel who holds strong convictions that negotiations with terrorists are utterly futile and fateful."

The head of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem has publicized the details of the Arafat’s gold heist, which was mentioned in an earlier column. He quotes from the book Inside the PLO (New York 1990) on how it took place:

"Perhaps the PLO’s biggest heist was the robbery, in early 1976, of the British Bank of the Middle East, which had its worldwide headquarters in Beirut. On January 20 members of Force 17, under the command of Ali Hassan Salameh, occupied the bank by blasting through an exterior wall it shared with the Catholic Capuchin Church. Two days later a team of Corsican locksmiths and safecrackers hired by the PLO arrived in Beirut and were taken immediately to the bank, where they began work to crack the main vault. On January 24 they accomplished their mission and for the next two days looted all the money and valuables in the vault and the safe-deposit boxes. The main vault contained thousands of gold bars and millions of dollars in Lebanese and foreign currencies, as well as stock certificates and other valuables. The safe-deposit boxes were also loaded with currency, gold, jewelry, and stock certificates. So great was the volume of material carried out of the bank that it had to be hauled away in trucks. The loot was divided up, with the PLO keeping two-thirds and the Corsicans receiving one-third.

Once the job was completed, a chartered DC-3 landed at Beirut International Airport, and the Corsicans flew away with $200 million in gold, jewelry, and currency. Sometime in mid-March another chartered aircraft, a Bristol Britannia Series 300 four-engine turboprop, arrived in Beirut and was met by gunmen from Force 17. Under their watchful eyes, three truckloads of loot, worth close to $400 million, were loaded aboard the Britannia. In the early-morning hours, after all the loot had been loaded on board. Arafat, Abu Iyad, and Salameh arrived, and the plane departed for Geneva. The three men returned two days later on the same aircraft, after presumably depositing their loot in numbered Swiss bank accounts. Other secret accounts were maintained in Lebanon (Beirut), Cyprus (Nicosia), Greece (Athens), and West Germany (Düsseldorf).

In the following months the PLO sold many of the stocks and bonds found in the bank vault back in their original owners for 20 or 30 cents on the dollar. In many cases Arab governments and top officials were only too eager to buy back their assets since they had been illegally obtained in the first place, and disclosure of the fact that they possessed such large sums of money or owned companies doing business with their own governments would have been very embarrassing. So successful was the "fire sale" that in October 1976 a second shipment of funds and other valuables, worth an estimated $250 million, was sent to Switzerland. Once again Abu Iyad and Salameh were on board the chartered aircraft."

This report documents the initial source of Arafat’s huge Swiss gold holdings. Those in Congress looking into whether to hand Arafat tax payers’ money should be interested in this account.

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