Widow Confirms Arafat Pre-Planned ‘Al-Aqsa Intifada’ Lori Lowenthal Marcus 12-31-12

In an interview on Dubai Television on December 16, Yassir Arafat's widow, Suha Arafat, confirmed what so many who have imbibed the Arab Palestinian narrative refuse to believe: the "al Aqsa Intifada" was not a spontaneous uprising ignited by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's walk on the Temple Mount on September 28, 2000.

The outbreak of violence that claimed the lives of more than 3000 Arabs and 1000 Israelis, was a calculated decision by Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat.  Arafat responded to U.S. President Clinton's efforts to forge peace between Arabs and Israelis at Camp David with his calculated plan to unleash brutal, organized mass killings and destruction because he viewed a positive response to those efforts  to be a betrayal of the Arab Palestinian cause.

Suha Arafat told the Dubai interviewer:

Yasser Arafat had made a decision to launch the intifada.  Immediately after the failure of the Camp David [negotiations], I met him in Paris upon his return, in July, 2001 [sic]. Camp David has failed, and he said to me: "You should remain in Paris." I asked him why, and he said: Because I am going to start an Intifada. They want me to betray the Palestinian cause.  They want me to give up on our principles, and I will not do so.

The fact that the uprising had nothing to do with Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount was admitted by  Arab Palestinian leadership as early as 2001.  Marwan Bharghouti, the head of the Tanzim Arab Palestinian terrorist group admitted, "whoever thinks that this started as a result of Sharon's despicable visit to Al Aksa [mosque on the Temple Mount] is in error.  It was planned since Arafat's return from Camp David [where he] firmly stood up to Clinton and rejected the U.S. terms."

Despite the admission by many Arab leaders and those with knowledge over the course of more than a dozen years that the 2000 uprising was planned as early as July, 2000 and was not the result of incitement by Ariel Sharon, most major news sources still endorse the blatantly false narrative.  For example, the BBC  provides its audience with this description of how the al-Aqsa Intifada began:

Ariel Sharon, then the leader of Israel's opposition, paid a visit to the site in East Jerusalem known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, and to Jews as Temple Mount, which houses the al-Aqsa mosque - and frustration boiled over into violence.

Not surprisingly, al Jazeera also explains the outbreak of the 2000 Arab Palestinian uprising as resulting from Sharon's visit, as does the Middle East organization, Adalah, "the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel." For some organizations ostensibly dedicated to truth telling and legal rights, a false truth, no matter how many times it has been exposed, no matter how long it has been exposed, and no matter by whom it has been exposed, if it fits the false Arab Palestinian narrative of victimization at the hands of Israel, it will continue to be told.