JERUSALEM – A Palestinian Authority TV children’s program told its young viewers that Israel murdered late leader Yasser Arafat along with “many of our people.”
“They killed Yasser Arafat, because until his final breath he defended the children of his people in war and in peace, diplomatically and also with a rifle, with a weapon,” the host of The Best Home said on the program, translated by Israeli monitoring group Palestinian Media Watch.
In response, a young participant repeated a popular chant by Arafat venerating death and avenging Jerusalem.
The boy cried, “In spirit and blood we will redeem you Al-Aqsa [mosque on the Temple Mount]! Millions of martyrs are marching towards Jerusalem!”
The host affirmed the young boy’s call to martyrdom, adding, “We will follow Yasser Arafat’s path.”
The TV show follows a litany of similar claims made by officials from the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party accusing Israel of murdering Arafat.
To mark the anniversary of his death on November 11, 2004, the PA’s television network has been airing a video several times a day charging Israel with poisoning Arafat and further claiming that Israel is targeting Abbas next.
“Israel is striving to repeat the scenario of the assassination of the late Yasser Arafat with President Mahmoud Abbas,” said Ahmed Majdalani, PLO Executive Committee member and Secretary-General of the PFLP – classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and EU.
Fatah Advisory Council member Ahmed Abd Al-Rahman cited an entirely made up conversation between then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and then-President George W. Bush in which the two concoct a plot to kill off Arafat:
“I say that they put poison into his ear a year earlier. A slow poison. And it began to work gradually and Yasser Arafat’s health deteriorated… [Former Israeli Prime Minister] Sharon said to [former President] Bush: ‘My brother, let us get rid of him and kill him.’ [He was talking] about Arafat. [Bush] told him: ‘Leave it to God.’ Sharon responded to him: ‘But God needs helpers on earth.'”