Second Intifada 'premeditated', says Arafat's widow

Much of the time, especially with on-line newspapers, we find ourselves reading reheated stories (even if the "facts" are new). Thus, The Times of Israel, online edition, of 31 December 2912, has two old "new" stories: . The first is reporting a new opinion poll which claims that 67% of Israelis would accept a two-state solution, which, etc (you've read it all before); the second tells us (yet again) that as sanctions bite, Iran is edging towards negotiations...as journos have been saying for months now. Funny how nothing seems to change.

However, now and then, a genuinely new take on an old story emerges. One such appears in the 31 December 2012 edition of The Tablet. Here we have Suha Arafat, Yasser's widow, telling us that the Second Intifada was premeditated. What's new is not that it was premeditated - that story has been around for a decade or so - but who is telling it. Thus, Adam Chandler, the author of the article has this "In a surreal interview with Dubai TV (translated by MEMRI), Suha Arafat, the widow of Yasser Arafat, bluntly boasted that the Second Intifada had been entirely premeditated by her late husband." (At the end of The Tablet article is a link to the original JPost story, which includes the interview, with subtitles provided by MEMRI. Do follow this link as well.)

As I noted at the beginning, it's not that this story is in any way new, it isn't, but the teller of the story is a new source of confirmation of a decade old story.

Not that the anti-Zionists will take any notice (as Chandler implies in his lead-up to the link with Suha Arafat).

By: Brian Goldfarb