Arafat's ongoing terrorism.

ITEM: As National Public Radio emphasized how "supporters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat [were marching] through the streets of the West Bank," NPR on September 29 featured commentary by Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle East studies at Sarah Lawrence College.

Maintaining that the Palestinian Authority leader should not be removed, Gerges insisted, "Arafat embodies Palestinian identity and aspirations. Neutralizing him would thus play into the hands of Hamas and Jihad, supplying them with more recruits to launch more attacks against Israelis."

It's misleading, claimed the professor, "to hold Arafat accountable for the suicide bombings committed by Hamas and Jihad...." And, he continued, "it's equally misleading to reduce the current stalemate in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to the role played by Arafat."

BETWEEN THE LINES: Although Gerges does not feel Arafat should be held responsible, Arafat's culpability is longstanding--from the campaign of airline hijackings decades ago to the recent suicide bombings. Only the willfully blind don't see this, since the facade is so transparent. Indeed, in reference to his organization's connection to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Hamas leader Sheikh Mahmoud Zahar has admitted: "Like the wings of a bird, they must work together."

It was an arm of Arafat's Fatah called Black September that carried out the massacre of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. The next year, Arafat personally ordered (his voice being picked up by American intelligence) the murders of U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel and his deputy George Moore in Sudan. As prominent liberal attorney Alan Dershowitz wrote in Canada's National Post last year, "Arafat excitedly bragged about his involvement in [the murders of the diplomats] to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu at a dinner attended by Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa, who subsequently defected to the United States and debriefed U.S. officials about the Arafat confession."

Pacepa summarized Arafat's dossier in "The KGB's Man" in the Wall Street Journal for September 22, 2003, describing how he was "trained, armed and bankrolled by the Soviet Union and its satellites for decades" Recounted Pacepa: "I was responsible for giving Arafat $200,000 in laundered cash every month throughout the 1970s. I also sent two cargo planes to Beirut a week, stuffed with uniforms and supplies. Other Soviet bloc states did much the same."

The former Romanian intelligence officer noted that Ararat was trained at the KGB's Balashikha special-operations center east of Moscow and groomed to head the PLO. Ceausescu urged Arafat to use tactics similar to those he utilized to convince the gullible West that the dictator was "independent" with a "moderate" streak.

Wrote Pacepa: "In March 1978, I secretly brought Arafat to Bucharest for final instructions on how to behave in Washington. 'You simply have to keep on pretending that you'll break with terrorism and that you'll recognize Israel--over and over, and over,' Ceansescu told him for the umpteenth time."

More recently, Arafat has transformed his terrorist PLO into a government-in-exile called the Palestinian Authority that, as Pacepa notes, is "always pretending to call a halt to Palestinian terrorism while letting it continue unabated."

The evidence shows that orders still come through Ararat. Consider the admissions of killers in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, whose leaders receive salaries from Arafat's virtual government. Arrogant about their deeds, many are open about Arafat's leadership.

As reported in USA Today on March 14, 2002, "A leader of the largest Palestinian terrorist group spearheading suicide bombings and other attacks against Israel says he is following the orders of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. 'Our group is an integral part of Fatah,' says Maslama Thabet, 33, a leader of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade."

West Bank Fatah leader Hussein a-Sheikh likewise acknowledged the terrorist connection. USA Today reported that the Fatah leader "seems insulted when asked whether the brigade is under Arafat's control. 'Of course, there is control,' he snaps. 'What do you think? That we are just a bunch of gangs?'"

Apparently, that is exactly what the typical NPR expert thinks.