Learn what will happen during the tribulation period from beginning to end
Your comments and questions are always welcome. To send comments and questions please click here to go to our main page. May 13, 2002 RAMALLAH, West Bank (CNN) -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Sunday he is prepared to accept a Jewish state called Israel. In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, however, he offered no apologies for funding such groups as the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, saying he was merely trying to help their members from suffering in poverty. The Palestinian Authority president said the land of Israel and the Palestinian territories is "terra santa" -- Latin for holy land -- for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. Any independent Palestinian state, he said, will have room for them all. "We hope that we will have this independent Palestinian state side by side with Israeli Jewish state," he told CNN. Asked whether he accepts the Jewish state of Israel, he replied, "Yes." "A part of the Jews are Palestinians, and they are represented in our legislative council," Arafat said. "Till now, we don't call them Jews. Do you know what we call them? Our cousins."
Reacting to the Arafat interview, Israeli Consul General Alon Pinkas said, "What is it about a Jewish state that he doesn't understand? What is it about recognizing Israel as a Jewish state that he finds so difficult to acknowledge?"
"What I heard was someone who doesn't know anything, hasn't heard anything, hasn't seen anything, doesn't know who's responsible for terrorism," Pinkas said. "So forgive me for being somewhat dismissive of his seriousness."
Arafat said he was doing his best to fight terrorism and has tried to investigate those responsible for a number of suicide bombings blamed on Palestinian militants, but complained that even after repeated requests Israel had provided him no information.
"We asked the details about the last suicidal bomb, in Rishon Letzion," he said, referring to last week's terror attack that killed 15 Israelis. The Israelis did not give him an answer, he said.
He said he did not know who was responsible for the Passover terror attack that killed 29 people in late March. The bombing has been blamed on a member of Hamas.
He conferred with an off-camera aide before shaking his head, no, that he did not know who was to blame.
"But we have condemned it," he said. "We are against all this .... Me, personally, I have condemned it."
Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist organization, has been labeled by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization.
Arafat was asked whether he knew who carried out the April 12 suicide bombing in a Jerusalem marketplace -- the terror attack killed six people. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a military wing of Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has carried out numerous attacks against military targets and civilians in Israel and in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. The U.S. State Department designated it as a foreign terrorist organization in March.
"I don't know," Arafat said. "But you know we have condemned this. And not only that, I gave instructions to search who had sent this." END
This is positive news but only lip service to get a little closer to their end mean of ultimately destroying Israel.Israel's ruling party the Likud Party Monday voted down a resolution to declare the creation of a Palestinian state. This will put Israel in a dangerous position in the world of public opinion. They will have a difficult time getting the world to accept retaliation from the recent suicide bombing, but isn't that what Arafat is thinking!
The world will take peace in the Middle East at any cost and this is as close as they feel it may get. This reminds me of the peace and love groupies that used to picket Washington for disarmament of nuclear weapons. Of course, we know how silly that would have been. You can't bargain with terrorist anymore than hijackers or kidnappers. The end results are always the same.
Look for Israel to grow increasingly isolated from the world until that fateful day when the antichrist comes on the scene.Actually, I feel that this latest announcement by Arafat is a giant step forward toward peace in the Middle East. If the suicide bombers can hold off maybe the deal will finally be signed. Although it will be very significant throughout the world, the Arab community will view it as a step forward to destroying Israel in the long run. They have no intention of keeping any peace agreement with Israel and soon after will attack them (Israel).
The EU will broker the deal and a multinational armed force will be brought in to make it stick.
Pastor Malone