UK documents: Bush ordered CIA to find replacement for Arafat

Paperwork say US President George W Bush thought of the Palestinian chief ‘ineffective’ however US spy company discovered no appropriate successor.

Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat, chief of the Palestinian Liberation Group, gained the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 with Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Perez after they signed the Oslo Accords [File: Ron Sachs/CNP/Getty Images]

Former United States President George W Bush ordered the CIA to seek for a alternative for Palestinian chief Yasser Arafat after the escalation of the second Intifada in 2001, the BBC stated, quoting just lately launched British paperwork.

The US effort got here after the failure of the Camp David negotiations in 2000 between Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The talks adopted the escalation of violence within the occupied territories of the West Financial institution and Gaza Strip.

In response to the BBC paperwork, Bush anticipated early on that Ariel Sharon, who succeeded Barak, would use the Gaza Strip to sow divisions among the many Palestinians.

The paperwork cope with discussions that befell between the UK and the US a number of months after Bush and his administration, which was dominated by neoconservatives, entered the White Home.

When Bush was inaugurated in January 2001, the second Palestinian rebellion was at its peak. It had erupted in late September 2000 when Sharon entered the courtyards of Al Aqsa Mosque, an act extensively seen by Palestinians as a provocation.

The Bush administration known as on Arafat to cease the rebellion to put the groundwork for the beginning of safety negotiations with Israel. It additionally vetoed a draft decision within the United Nations Safety Council, which proposed sending a UN observer pressure to guard Palestinian civilians from Israeli forces within the occupied territories.

After the negotiations have been aborted, phone talks have been held between Bush and then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair through which they mentioned the Palestinian-Israeli battle at size.

In response to the minutes of the talks, the prime minister stated Arafat was a legal responsibility.

He stated the Palestinian chief “had reached the boundaries of what he can do constructively and he's solely working to keep up his place”. He added that Arafat “not has something to supply”, indicating that the chief had made all of the doable concessions he might.

Bush endorsed what Blair had stated, then described Arafat as “weak and ineffective”. He revealed that he had requested the CIA to seek for doable successors to the Palestinian chief however stated that the company “researched the Palestinian scene completely and concluded that there isn't a successor out there”.

The British paperwork revealed that the US secretary of state on the time, Colin Powell, didn't agree with Bush’s seek for a alternative for Arafat.

Arafat died a number of years later, on November 11, 2004, at a Paris hospital after a cerebral haemorrhage brought on by a poisonous substance – polonium – that was discovered on his garments and physique.

Palestinians and Arabs accused Israel of killing him. It denied any accountability for his dying.

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post