YASSER ARAFAT: WE STRUGGLE FOR THE WORLD NOT TO FORGET US AS IT FORGOT ARMENIANS

Azg/arm
13 Nov 04

In 1965 while the Armenians all over the world were calling for
commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Genocide, the Palestine
Liberation Organization started in Egypt and Jordan, and the son of one
of the most respected Palestinian families, Yasser Arafat, became its
head till his demise. In fact, he became the successor of Palestinian
hero and eventually martyr Abd Al-Qadir Hussein, whose movement broke
off in 1948, when the latter died in the first Arab-Israeli war.

Yasser Arafat was well acquainted with the Armenians who have their
shrines and churches in Palestine, most famous one of which is the
church of St. Jacob in Jerusalem, on the Mount Zionâ~@¦ Armenians
were among those who suffered great losses during the war of
1946-1948. Most of them left Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem for Lebanon,
Syria and Armenia. The second flow of Armenians left Palestine after
the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 but this time for Canada and America.

As a result of defeat (not without the help of the West and
Arab states) in the wars of 1947-48 and 1967, millions of
Palestinians turned into homeless refugees in Lebanon, Palestine
and Syria. Recalling Armenian Genocide of 1915 and Sanjag-Alexandret
tragedy of 1937-38, Yasser Arafat stated in 1967 explaining why they
took the path of armed struggle: “We struggle for the world not to
forget us as it forgot Armeniansâ~@¦”

In 1968 Petros Terzian and Hakob Garayan, editorial staff members of
Yeritasard Hye (young Armenian) magazine of Beirut, visited the centers
of Palestinian revolution in Jordan where they met with Arafat, George
Habash, Najef Havatme, Abu Ali Iyyad and other leaders. Later on papers
were published and stuck on the streets of Beirut. They were depicting
Armenian and Palestinian freedom fighters with a banner above reading
“Long Live Scarred Fidayi” (freedom fighter).

A year later, in 1969, when Jordan king Husseinâ~@~Ys troops together
with Israeli army attacked Palestinian refugees, Abu Ali Iyyad, the
right hand of Arafat was killed. Death of one of the great supporters
of the Arabian national movement, Egyptâ~@~Ys President Gamal Abd
Naser, was the second heavy blow for Palestinians.

After the Arab-Israeli war in 1973 and the civil war in Lebanon,
the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and
the Front of Liberation of Western Armenia started by the help of
the PLO. Soon after Kurdish, Arab, Greek, Assyrian and Turkish left
movements (PKK, TAKP, Isinin Sesi, TKP-Leninçiler, Devrimi Yol)
who found refuge in Turkey and Syria in 1980 joined them. They were
agitating against Kenan Evrenâ~@~Ys junta in Lebanon, Turkey, France,
England, Belgium, Germany and elsewhere. Agitating literature, films,
newspapers pulled off Turkish “democracyâ~@~Ys” false mask that had
organized genocides of Armenians, Kurds, Greeks and Assyrians and had
executed its own progressive intelligentsia. Without the military,
financial, moral support of Yasser Arafat, Abu Jihad, Abu Ajad,
Abu Shaker Bsiso, Abu Al-Hol, George Habash, Najef Havatme, Abu-Al
Abbas, Dalad Yagub and others it would be impossible to put before
the international community all the just requests of all the nations
suffered under Turkeyâ~@~Ys yoke.

Decades after, when Yasser Arafat changed his armed struggle for
diplomatic one, USAâ~@~Ys and Israelâ~@~Ys attempts to isolate and
to discredit the Palestinian figurehead ended up in Islamic extremism
which had turned from left Marxist ideology to medieval fundamentalism
in the person of bin Laden, the “savior”. Those terrorists today use
the same means of manslaughter that were once used by their enemies.

The man who passed through inconceivable trials of life is no
more. Death of the father of 9-year-old Zahwa and all the Palestinian
orphans leaves the Middle East in uncertainty heaped up with unsolved
issues. As he put it once: “Where to be born – is a big issue for a
Palestinian but even bigger is â~@~S where to be buriedâ~@¦”

By Hamo Moskofian

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