Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA)

Strategic Alliances for a Secure, Connected, and Prosperous Region

Menu

Yasser Arafat, Christmas, and the PFLP

December 25, 2001

Just one day before Yasser Arafat hoped to attend Bethlehem's Christmas-eve celebrations, Israel arrested an operative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Haifa, who was planning a terrorist attack in the heart of the city. The two events were not unlinked, for the Israeli government had conditioned Arafat's participation in the Midnight Mass at Bethlehem's St. Catherine's Church upon his arrest of the PFLP leadership in Ramallah who were responsible for the murder last October of Gen. Rehavam Ze'evi, the Minister of Tourism of Israel.