This decision fails to meet the obligations laid out in Article XXXI (9) of the Oslo II accords in two respects. First, the actual amendment of the Covenant has been left for a future date. As of now, the old Covenant, in its original form, remains the governing document of the PLO, and will continue in this status until the amendments are actually approved. In legal terms, there is a sharp difference between calling for something to change and actually implementing the changes.

According to various assessments, this understanding would require the removal of anywhere between 10 and 28 of the Covenant's 33 clauses. Palestinian officials, on the other hand, have spoken of changing far fewer clauses, and the PNC decision leaves open the question of which articles will be amended

Arafat has raised a large army, the size of which far exceeds his peace accord commitments.  The enormous quantity and increasingly deadly quality of the weapons he has accumulated also exceed all the limits that he had promised.  The terrorist infrastructure under his control has not been dismantled. There has been no hand over of the PLO's illegal weapons, nor has there been extradition to the US or to Israel of PLO murderers of Jewish Americans and Jewish Israelis.  All of this is in flagrant violations of the letter and spirit of Arafat's signed international agreements.

Arafat's University of Cairo records were discovered and revealed by Andrew Gowers and Tony Walker, in their 1990 book, Behind the Myth, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Revolution (London; Corgi Books, 1990).

Allan Hart, Chairman Arafat's personal and official biographer, accepted the documentation as factual and admitted the Palestinian leader's Egyptian birth based on these discoveries. (Allan Hart: Arafat: A Political Biography. London; Sidgwick & Jackson, 1994).

The Documents reveal the following:

Mohammed Abd el-Rahman Abd el-Raouf Arafat Al-Qudwa Al-Husseini [Yasser Arafat], was born August 24, 1929 in Cairo, Egypt.

The structure of Arafat's name sheds light on some more information:

Mohammed Abd el Rahman -----Arafat's given name

Abd el-Raouf -------Arafat's father's name

Arafat ----------Arafat's grandfather's name

Al-Qudwa ---------Arafat's family name

Al-Husseini -----------Arafat's clan or tribal affiliation

(NOTE: Although the use of the name Mohammed is common in Arab societies, it is most common among devout Egyptian Moslems. Some examples are Mohammed Anwar Sadat, Mohammed Hosni Mubarak and Mohammed Bassayouni.

Arafat's Childhood and Youth

The Arafat-orchestrated myth states that Arafat lived in Jerusalem. However: Little Mohammed Abd el-Rahman [Yasser Arafat], one of seven children, lived comfortable in the Sakakini district of Cairo.

His mother, Zawa (for whom his daughter is named) died in 1933.

Arafat's father sent Yasir and his brother Fathi to live with their maternal uncle Selim Abu-Saoud, who lived in the Old City of Jerusalem. Although Mohammed and Fathi only spent four years in Jerusalem (the only time Yasser was ever in Jerusalem), it was during this time that Arafat acquired his love of the religious environment of the city.

After four years in Jerusalem, they returned to their father's house in Cairo, where their sister Inam cared for them.

Mohammed's relationship with his hyper-disciplinarian and abusive father was deteriorating, and he spent most of his time with his maternal uncle Awad Al-Akhbar. It was here that Arafat received his Islamic education.

Arafat's Husseini-relation Myth:

This myth asserts that Yasser Arafat is the nephew of Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, the late Mufti of Jerusalem and leader of the Palestinian nationalist movement during the first half of the 20th century.

Firstly, some adherents to this claim cite the Al-Husseini name in Mohammed Abd el-Rahman's name as evidence. The position could be reasonable, if, like Western-oriented names, it referred to his biological family. However, as pointed out above, the "Al-Husseini refers to Arafat's familial tribal affiliation, known in the West as an extended family.

Secondly, there existed at the time eleven Al-Husseini clans in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, none of whom were related to the Jerusalem Husseini clan, of which the Mufti was a member.

Arafat's family history is grounded in Egypt and Gaza. There is an "Al-Qudwa Street" in Gaza where Yasser Arafat's ancestors lived. The Al-Husseinis of Gaza are not related to the Hajj Amin Al-Husseini's family. Arafat's family is the Al-Qudwas.

However, Yasser Arafat DOES have a connection to the Mufti, and this connection leads us to another Arafat-orchestrated myth – That he was deputy commander under Abd el-Kader Al-Husseini and fought in the battle for Jerusalem. To present the truth, we must see the Al-Husseini connection and Arafat's actual participation in the 1947-1948 Palestinian-Israeli war.

The Mufti had fled Palestine, after Britain ordered his arrest for his participation in the 1936-39 anti-British intifadha. He fled to Nazi Germany, and proceeded to recruit 30,000 Balkan Moslems for the SS. He would later agree to recruit Arabs in the Middle East to aid the Nazis in the North African campaign. This, in exchange for a pledge from Hitler that Germany would implement the extermination of the Jews in Palestine, should they successfully occupy it from Britain.

In 1946, Hajj-Amin returned to Palestine as the result of receiving amnesty from the British Mandatory administration. At this time, a 17-year-old Yasser Arafat began a personal relationship with the Mufti. This was the result of the close relationship of Sheikh Hassan Abu-Sa`oud, the patriarch of his late mother's family and a distant relative to Arafat, who was an advisor and confidant of the Mufti.

Arafat first served the Mufti and his Higher Arab Committee as a courier to the surrounding Arab countries and the Arab League. His responsibilities included the collection of donations for the Arab cause. Moreover, he was Al-Husseini's observer of pro-Palestinian activities on Egyptian campuses.

In 1947, Arafat was placed in charge of arms procurement and shipment for the Mufti's Irregular forces – The Holy Strugglers.

Arafat has claimed to have had a "close relationship" to the commander of the Mufti's Holy Strugglers, Abd el-Kader Al-Husseini (father of Feisal Husseini), and cousin to Hajj Amin.

While the two of them often met in the Mufti's Cairo office, that was the extent of their relationship.

Arafat's Cairo-based political career ended in 1948. At that point, Yasser Arafat and his fellow students from Cairo University went to Gaza as part of a contingent of Al-Ikwan Al-Muslimin (Moslem Brotherhood) a virtually all-Egyptian group, with few, if any, Palestinians. This would indicate that he viewed himself as others did – as an Egyptian Moslem. It would further indicate that he was, at least at that time, a member of the Moslem Brotherhood.

As for his claim to have served as "special military assistant" to the Arab legendary fighter for Jerusalem, Abd el-Kader al-Husseini, the actual deputy commander was Kamel Irekat. This, in addition to the fact that the Moslem Brotherhood fighters were never near the Jerusalem theatre of combat. They remained in Gaza and fought with the Egyptians.

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The problem is clearly not the location - wherever the negotiators meet, the circular debates are the same. The real problem is that while Israeli and Palestinian negotiators may be in the same room from time to time, politically, they are still in two parallel political universes.

For Ehud Barak, the negotiations are focused on efforts to reach workable compromises on specific issues - Jerusalem, borders, refugees, and settlements. The assumption, apparently shared by the Clinton Administration (although we can never be sure), is that while these are indeed complex and difficult issues, satisfactory technical solutions can be found.

However, Arafat and the Palestinians are involved in an entirely different process. Throughout the negotiations, they have not put any realistic proposals on the table with regard to the issue of Jerusalem, borders, or settlements. While every public statement includes a repetition of the Palestinian demands on these issues, these are strictly designed for outside consumption. All the moves designed to reach compromise solutions are based on Israeli or American initiatives.

In reality, Arafat and other Palestinian officials have three completely different priorities in these negotiations. These are "the right of return for the refugees," the release of remaining Palestinian prisoners (all of whom are convicted and unrepentant terrorists with "blood on their hands"), and, most urgently, the insistence on a major Israeli redeployment before a permanent-status agreement.

The unavoidable conclusion is that for Arafat and the Palestinians, peace with Israel and the end to the Arab-Israeli conflict are simply not on the agenda. The effort to flood Israel with refugees (who have been used for decades as political pawns), and to give legitimacy to terrorists who vow to continue "the war against the Jews," go against the direction needed to end, or even reduce the level of conflict.

Instead, these policies demonstrate that the ideology of rejectionism that has dominated Arab and Palestinian political life for decades has not changed. The demand for more territory immediately is entirely consistent with Arafat's goal of creating as large a state as possible, while also avoiding the ideological concessions necessary in the context of a peace treaty with Israel.

The clash between these entirely different agenda and goals was highlighted on May 15. On this day, which commemorates the "catastrophe" (Nakba) in the Arab world, the Palestinians began carefully planned gun battles designed to demonstrate that the neither the goals nor the tactics of 1947 have changed. This was also the day that Ehud Barak chose to push the approval to transfer Abu Dis and two other Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem through the Knesset.

This combination - a Palestinian army, created on the basis of the Oslo "peace" agreement, taking aim at Israelis, while the Israeli government prepares to hand over territory in Jerusalem to the nascent Palestinian state - was totally incongruous. Even the truest of Israeli believers in peace and reconciliation could not accept the absurdity of this scene.

Seven years after Oslo, many have finally recognized that the main obstacles to peace are not Israeli policies, or differences over borders and Jerusalem but rather, the unchanging rejection of the concept of compromise on the Palestinian side.

Meanwhile, Dennis Ross, Madeleine Albright and the rest of Clinton team continue to jump back and forth across the parallel dimensions between Barak and Arafat. Perhaps the Americans cling to the hope that despite the deep hatreds and animosity, the web of agreements will channel the conflict to less violent forms.

At the same time, the more cynical explanation cannot be ignored. After eight years in office, and an incredible amount of time devoted to Middle East peace efforts, another spectacular signing ceremony, and perhaps even a Nobel Prize, are still very tempting. Having failed in the Syrian-Israeli talks, for the same reasons, they cling to the only remaining option.

"It (the document) rings the alarm bell for Palestinians, Arabs and peoples of the world that we will never accept any piece of land as an alternative to Jerusalem," Sabri said.