This couldn’t have been plotted better by a scriptwriter. In an action heavy with symbolism, looters affiliated with Hamas have broken into Arafat’s home, trashed the place, and stolen everything they could…including his Nobel Peace Prize. Since Arafat was dedicated to the destruction of Israel no less than they were, but was just cleverer about concealing it (witness the fact that he received the Prize at all), and readily used the rhetoric of jihad especially in his Arabic-language speeches, this is fitting: Hamas is the natural outcome of his life’s work, and thus the most fitting inheritor of this great commendation of that work.
It’s all the more fitting since Arafat’s Nobel is a symbol of Western willful blindness and pusillanimity, of which Hamas has lately been the beneficiary also.
“Looters raid Arafat’s home, steal his Nobel Peace Prize,” by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Mladen Andrijasevic:
Enraged Fatah leaders on Saturday accused Hamas militiamen of looting the home of former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat in Gaza City.
“They stole almost everything inside the house, including Arafat’s Nobel Peace Prize medal,” said Ramallah-based Fatah spokesman Ahmed Abdel Rahman. “Hamas militiamen and gangsters blew up the main entrance to the house before storming it. They stole many of Arafat’s documents and files, gifts he had received from world leaders and even his military outfits.”
Abdel Rahman said the attackers also raided the second floor of the house and stole the personal belongings of his widow, Suha, and daughter, Zahwa. “They stole all the widow’s clothes and shoes,” he added. “They also took Arafat’s pictures with his daughter.”
“Most of the looters were just ordinary citizens,” they said. “They stole almost everything, including furniture, tiles, water pipes, closets and beds.”
According to the Fatah spokesman, the raid on Arafat’s house, which has been empty since 2001, occurred despite promises from Syria-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to prevent such an attack.