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China’s Xinhua news agency reports that Palestinian officials told it that the PA has come under serious pressure from the U.S. and France not to seek an international tribunal to investigate the possible murder of Yasser Arafat:

The Palestinians’ efforts to launch an international probe into the 2004 death of ex-leader Yasser Arafat face serious obstacles, a Palestinian official said Tuesday. The obstacles stem from the opposition by some countries including the United States and France, the official said on condition of anonymity. The United States has put pressure on the Palestinian leadership not to seek such an investigation because it can lead to some negative consequences on the Middle East peace process…

Of course it will. If Israel is discovered to have killed Arafat, it will make it look like an utter ass and further alienate Palestinians (and the world) from Israel. So what the U.S. is saying essentially is that Arafat’s murder is water under the bridge and it’s far more important to negotiate a peace deal than dwell on the past. This. of course ignores the critical importance of justice and accountability in resolving this conflict.

The Americans seem to have this idea that the Palestinians must somehow sweep all past injustices under the rug, thus developing a severe case of historical amnesia. Only through such forgetting can Palestinians get anything resembling a reasonable deal. Sorry, but I don’t buy that. Such deals shorn of justice are products of expediency. Expediency doesn’t bring closure. It brings a temporary amelioration of symptoms. Then the illness returns in full force with all the bitterness that entails.

Further, such pressure, if this story is correct, proves that these two countries have been lobbied by Israel to stop any investigation that might expose the misdeeds of the Mossad in this case. Once again, the U.S. and Obama administration carry water for their Israeli ally. It’s more important to this president to get elected with as many Jewish votes as he can muster than it is to expose an act of state terror against the head of a foreign government. Just as Obama supports full-throatedly the drone-murder of anti-American militants, he excuses the murder of Yasser Arafat, yet another expendable Muslim.