Palestinian Authority Chairman Yassir Arafat has declared that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon bears a personal grudge because of his failure to kill him in Beirut twenty years ago, according to a recounting of a personal interview with Arafat. The initial interview was published in the London-based daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat.
The recounting in the Palestinian paper Al-Ayyam refers to Arafat by his nom de guerre Abu ‘Aamar.
The interview sheds much light on how Arafat views the present situation. In the same interview Arafat is quoted as saying, “I will not resign…I will die as a martyr…I am destined for martydom.”
Mahmoud ‘Abbas
In response to a question on his health, Arafat replied that all was well and the only thing troubling him is the suffering of the Palestinian people. He described himself and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud ‘Abbas having a “historic relationship” and emphasized that ‘Abbas only went to meet Sharon after he first consulted with Arafat.
Sharon
Arafat claimed that Sharon is constantly referring to him as a source of terror because of Sharon’s inability to forget his failure in wiping out the PLO as Defense Minister in 1982.
Iraq
Arafat also called the Iraq war a “historic, political, geographic, countrywide, national and global tragedy.”
To read an earlier story on this click here [3].