“Thou shalt not rejoice when your enemy falls.” Thus are we commanded bythe book of Proverbs. It’s a command that is not always easy to carryout. For example, when it concerns Abu Nidal, who according to the news iscurrently hospitalized in Egypt in a terminal condition.
Abu Nidal murdered the Palestinian peace hero Issam Sartawi, who waslike a brother to me. He murdered the Palestinian peace hero SaidHammami, a man I loved and admired. He murdered Abu Iyad, with whom Ihad planned peace actions before it was fashionable todo so. Abu Nidal threatened to murder me as well.
At the beginning of the year 1984, Sartawi and I appeared in a largepublic gathering in London. We arrived there under heavy security fromScotland Yard, after a lot of soul-searching. Sartawi knew that he wasrisking his life. A bloc of Abu Nidal followers sat in the auditiorium,disrupting his every sentence. An opposing bloc of Meir Kahane followersdisrupted every sentence of mine. At one point Sartawi yelled out:”Blessed be! Now you have both formed an alliance! I congratulate you!”(I recorded the exchange and someday, when the museum of peace is built,I will donate this recording to it.)
The next day a London newspaper published an announcement that Abu Nidalhad sentenced three people to death: The CIA agent Yasser Arafat, theMossad Agent Issam Sartawi, and the CIA and Mossad Agent Uri Avnery.A few days later Sartawi was murdered.
Previously, we had spent dozens of hours analyzing the phenomenon calledAbu Nidal. Again and again we tried to determine whom he was working for.Sabri Al Banah, who calls himself Abu Nidal (“the father of thestruggle”), was born in Jaffa. He grew up as a refugee in Saudi Arabia,and worked there as a lowly laborer — a class scorned in that richcountry. When he ascended in the Fatah hierarchy, he felt even morehumiliated and insulted, because most of the leaders of the organizationwere college graduates. It was evident that a tremendous amount offrustration and rage were accumulating in him.
When Abu Nidal was sent as a Fatah emissary to Iraq, he establishedcontact with the Iraqi Intelligence Service. Following his new masters’instructions, he rebelled against Arafat, left the Fatah organization andestablished his own group: “Fatah — the Revolutionary Headquarters.” ButAbu Nidal was not content with serving Iraq. In the course of the years,he served many masters, at times simultaneously. When there was a severeconflict between Baghdad and Damascus, he worked for both. He also servedLibyan interests.
Sartawi added another potential employer to the list: Israel. Cicero’sfamous question: “Cui Bono?” (“Who benefits from it?”) led Sartawi toconclude that the sole beneficiary of Abu Nidal’s actions was the Israelipropaganda machine. For instance: When the PLO was working desperatelytowards international recognition and sympathy, Abu Nidal blew upsynagogues and Jewish orphanages in Europe, in addition to murderingtravelers at airports. The international media (and of course theIsraeli media), which paid no attention to the nuances, accused Fatah ofmasterminding all the above.
Matters reached their peak in 1982. The entire world knew that ArielSharon wanted to invade Lebanon. I myself published in “Ha’Olam Hazeh” adetailed outline of the planned assault, from Sharon’s own words tome (but without attribution). Sharon wanted to install a ChristianMaronite dictator in Lebanon under Israel’s auspices and to chase thePalestinians out of Lebanon and into Syria (and from there to Jordan,where they would topple the Jordanian monarch and establish a”Palestinian state” in its place). All that Sharon lacked was anexcuse for a war, because Arafat had meticulously adhered to thecease-fire on the Lebanese border, agreed to with Americannegotiations. For an entire year the area was free of any incidents.
In May of 1982 Sharon met with General Alexander Haig, then theAmerican Secretary of State, and asked for his approval of theinvasion. Haig granted it, with the stipulation that the assaultmust come only after “a serious provocation, recognized assuch by the entire world.” A few days later, Abu Nidal made anattempt to assassinate the Israeli Ambassador in London, ShlomoArgov. The assassin was Abu Nidal’s cousin, and the flawed nature ofthe attempt was evidence that it had been hastily planned. At acabinet meeting, when the invasion was authorized,the head of the General Security Service noted that it was notArafat who made the assassination attempt on Argov, but, in fact, hisarch-nemesis, Abu Nidal. Begin cut him off, and the Chief of Staff,Rafael Eitan, commented: “Abu Nidal, Abu Shmidal, all of them arePLO!”
Sartawi was convinced that Israel had contracted with Abu Nidal to carryout the assassination. In his opinion, Abu Nidal was nothing but aterrorist contractor who offered his services to anyone. Sartawi did nothave conclusive proof in his hands, but the coincidences were impressive.Even earlier, in January of 1978, Abu Nidal murdered Said Hamami, also anative of Jaffa, and a remote relative of Abu Nidal, which did not helphim any. Arafat sentenced Abu Nidal to death, but the latter proved tohave a remarkable talent in concealing his whereabouts. There is only oneknown photo of the man, and Sartawi told me that it is not Abu Nidal’spicture at all but that of his bodyguard.
Once, during a rare interview, Abu Nidal was asked by the German weekly”Der Spiegel” how he would propose to deal with Israeli peace activistssuch as myself. “Uri Avnery should go back to Germany,” heresponded in an rare display of generosity.