FALL 2002		Vol. 31, No. 1

MY OPINION:
Put Arafat on Trial
by Alan M. Dershowitz

The rule of law requires that murderers be brought to justice. Yasser Arafat is a cold-blooded, premeditated murderer. It would seem to follow that he should be brought to trial. The incontrovertible evidence of Arafat's complicity in murder goes back to 1973, when Palestinian terrorists invaded a diplomatic reception at the Saudi Arabian embassy at Khartoum, Sudan and kidnapped two American diplomats and a Belgian diplomat. The U.S. National Security Agency intercepted a communication between Yasser Arafat in Beirut and Khalil al-Wazir in the Khartoum office of al-Fatah. According to James Welch, an American security agent who over- heard the intercept, Arafat was directly involved in the operation, which was code-named Nahr al-Bard, Cold River. The U.S. government has hard evidence that when the Americans refused the demands of the Palestinian terrorists--to free Sirhan Sirhan, the murderer of Robert Kennedy--Yasser Arafat personally ordered the murder of the three diplomats, one of whom was then the highest ranking African-American in the foreign service. The diplomats were taken to the basement of the embassy and tortured to death so brutally that "authorities couldn't tell which was black and which was white." Arafat took credit for these murders during a private dinner with Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu two months later. The dinner was attended by General Ion Mihai Pacepa, a high-ranking Romanian intelligence officer who later defected to the United States. Pacepa wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal earlier this year in which he stated that "Arafat excitedly bragged about his Khartoum operation." According to General Pacepa, Arafat also claimed credit for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

These are just some of the thousands of victims--American, Israeli, and others--of the godfather of Palestinian terrorism. Arafat, like Osama bin Laden, has also targeted Jews, just because they are Jews. These targets have included people at prayer in synagogues throughout Europe as well as children in nurseries and school buses. His killing continues up to the present time, as do his false denials. One can only imagine how many innocent civilians would have been killed by the boatload of Iranian arms captured by the Israelis earlier this year. As General Pacepa wrote in the Wall Street Journal: "Yasser Arafat remains the same bloody terrorist I knew so well during my years at the top of Romania's Foreign Intelligence Service." This conclusion has been confirmed by many documents discovered by the Israel Defense Forces during Operation Defensive Shield.

Any experienced prosecutor, given access to the evidence--some of which is currently secreted in American, Israeli, and European intelligence files--could present an open-and-shut first-degree murder case against Yasser Arafat. In considering the various options available to Israel--exile of Arafat, continued negotiation with him, and even targeted assassination--scant consideration has been given to the most obvious legal option: arresting Arafat for murder and placing him on trial in a public courtroom with lawyers and witnesses of his choice. The reason this option has not been seriously considered is the practical fear that a trial of Arafat would cause more terrorism and more hostage-taking by Palestinians determined to free him. In addition, putting him on trial could make him a martyr among Palestinians, and perhaps even among some Europeans.

In the end, the Israeli government must make the tough decision whether or not to bring Arafat to trial, weighing the claims of public accountability against the practical difficulties of achieving justice. Were I an Israeli, I would recommend a public trial, despite the risks. The world should see the hard evidence that terrorism has become the tactic of choice for the Palestinian Authority and that Yasser Arafat is personally responsible for the mass murder of innocent civilians. This is especially important today, when so many Europeans and American academics seem unwilling to see Arafat as a racist murderer.

Whether or not Israel chooses this option, one conclusion remains crystal clear: a fair and open trial of Yasser Arafat on charges of first-degree murder would definitely produce a verdict of guilty.

Harvard Law Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is the author of numerous books, most recently Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge (Yale University Press, September 2002).

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