Facts, not opinions
From Daniel Kofman Sir: Mark Steyn (`Say goodbye, Yasser Arafat', 6 April) makes much of the Israel Defence Force's having found in Arafat's compound a lot of armaments, explosive belts, equipment to print counterfeit Israeli shekels and a large quantity of such bogus money. But the Palestinian Authority claims all this was confiscated contraband. The compound had been serving as a police station and jail (the assassins of the Israeli cabinet minister Ze'evi were detained there), most police stations having been destroyed by the Israelis during the intifada.
I follow the Israeli press regularly and have not seen analysts contradict the Authority's claims. More worrying are the documents that the IDF claims to have found showing Palestinian Authority financing of the Al Agsa Brigade's suicide bombings; the Authority claims these are IDF forgeries. Steyn adds a throwaway line about belts with Semtex, but no Palestinian group operating in the territories has ever been known to use Semtex. There has been much documented toleration of and incitement to terror by Arafat and the Palestinian Authority for which a better informed writer could have made a serious case.
Daniel Kofman
Pembroke College, Oxford
Previous page
