In his book “By Way of Deception”, the former Israeli Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky admits that Mossad is behind all the rumors stained the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. According to Ostrovsky, that was part of the big efforts of special department of psychological warfare in the Mossad, but yet many Arabs would repeat some of these rumors as if they were facts, and surprisingly among them some intellectuals.

But the long story of Arafat and the Palestinian struggle against Israel might reveals two important characteristics in Arab mentality: responding to propaganda rather than facts, and lacking a sense of history.

One of the most defamatory rumor the Israelis succeeded in planting it among Arabs for decades is that Arafat was just a millionaire stealing the money of the Palestinian people. Yes he was managing the assets of PLO, but when he died Palestinians found out that this millionaire owned nothing more than two military suits and have no house. Barely people know this fact, even Palestinians. That rumor reminds us of the golden rule of propaganda laid down by the great Nazi leader P.J. Goebbels: “you have to say half-truth to make the lie acceptable and keep repeating it”. The half-truth was that Arafat was managing the assets of PLO but the lie was that he owns it.

Smearing the reputation of Arafat and the rest of Palestinian leaders was developing in parallel with developments on the ground. As Palestinian struggle gains new ground and victories, the Israeli psychological warfare escalated and the rumors will mount. Unsurprisingly, we will find that rumors against Palestinian leaders mounted during the first and second intifada (1987-2000). But there was a change in the tone and content thus the target slightly changed specially in the year of 2000. By that time, Arafat was the president of the national Palestinian Authority (NPA), and he was in Palestine not in exile. As the signs of division were raising among Palestinians, the Israeli psychological warfare started to target deferent audience. In that context, we started to read and hear those rumors claiming that Arafat is a Moroccan Jew originally and Mr. Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is a Baha’hi.

If such a nasty war like this is expected from the Israelis, the problem is that rival Palestinians and Arabs adopt it immediately without any kind of Scrutiny and never link it to any context. Once it appears in a websites moderated by Mossad, most of Arab websites would spread it like a wildfire and would become as facts only by the effect of redundancy and many would deal with it as they discovered new facts.

The Palestinian division is not a result of Israeli psychological warfare only, but this warfare benefited from all kind of mistakes committed by Palestinian political rivals either Fateh or Hamas. But most importantly this warfare dealt with a mental characteristic in Palestinians and Arabs makes them always accept propaganda rather than facts. This warfare contributed in pushing Palestinians gradually to civil war and obviously Israelis Succeeded to achieve a strategic goal in their agenda.

It’s not only the effect of rumors, but also how Palestinians and Arabs would read and understand the goals of the Israelis. Here we are in front of the second mental characteristic of Arabs: lacking the sense of history.

The National Palestinian Authority (NPA) was founded in 1994 and since that year until 2002, the military Israeli action was targeting only the Palestinian authority. While Hamas was lunching suicide attacks against Israelis, the Israeli military reaction was targeting always the small Poorly equipped Palestinian police force and the poor infrastructure of the NPA in west bank. Israelis were aiming to destroy all possibilities of a process of leads to build an independent Palestinian state, but Arabs - including majority of Palestinians- fall in the trap of propaganda again when they adopted irrational conclusion towards this Israeli reaction. they concluded this: “Hamas” is fighting and NPA (Fateh) surrendered.

This Israeli strategy exhausted its range in the 2002 Invasion and the siege of Arafat in his headquarter in Ram Allah until he died in 2004. Soon after that, they turned to Hamas and the military action was concentrating from 2005 until now only on Gaza and Hamas.

Such a shift in the Israeli strategy and tactics didn’t bring the attention of those who are still repeating the same irrational conclusions: Hamas is fighting and Fateh (NPA) surrendered. It’s a close history, but the majority of Palestinians and Arabs never asked themselves: why the Israelis changed their strategy? Furthermore, those who are obliged more than others to deal with such a question didn’t have the Courage to reconsider their positions and acknowledge any mistakes based on an objective revision of this close history.

Mohammad Fadhel is a Bahraini writer and media consultant based in Dubai.