Does Peres Still Plan to Fund Raise for Arafat in Oslo?

The spate of terror attacks in Israel on December 1st and 2nd found Israel Foreign Minister Shimon Peres chairing a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on the morning of December 2nd in his role as the acting prime minister of Israel, in the absence of travelling Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.

At that cabinet meeting, Peres issued a series of statements to demand action and not words from Arafat and the PA in response to Arab terror.

Yet on that morning of December 2nd, the Jerusalem Post ran a news story that reminded its readership that Peres was still planning to meet Arafat on December 10th in Oslo, together with the “donor nations” that provide the PA with its operating budget for health, education, welfare and security expenses. That gathering in Oslo is on the occasion of the 100th anniverary of the Nobel Prize. Arafat, Rabin and Peres shared that prize in December, 1994.

Indeed, the EU provides the PA with $10 million EURO per month for its security services. Israel Resource News Agency has received documentation that the EU officials in Jerusalem know that the PA security services openly fund, train and arm the Hamas cadres that have been carrying out the terror acts in all parts of Israel. The IDF confirms that Hamas and the Islamic Jihad conducts its activities with the full cooperation with these same PA security forces. (See Israel Resource Review of October 31, 2001)

When I was in Brussels on November 9, EU officials affirmed that their aid to the PA is with the full knowledge and endorsement of the Israel Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Shimon Peres.

EU officials also affirmed that their support for the organizations affliiated with Yose Beilin is also with the endorsement of the Israel Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Peres.

EU officials also affirmed that their funding of PA education is with the endorsement of the Israel Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Peres.

Indeed, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs took a major step to deflect criticism of the new school books of the Palestinian Authority by co-sponsoring a seminar for the foreign media and the diplomatic corps in Jerusalem on November 27, 2001, in which Prof. Nathan Brown made a presentation that refuted the idea that the PA school books were filled with incitement. Prof. Brown is affiliated with George Washington University and with the Middle East Institute, an Arab interest group in Washington. Prof. Brown has also assisted the PA to plan their constitution.

So there you have it: An Arabist from Washington, has been given credibility by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Shimon Peres has stated on many occasions that the Oslo Process will not be reversed, no matter what.

Will Peres fly to Oslo to salvage Arafat and the PA next week? Time will tell.