In Arafat's footsteps …

It didn't get a great deal of attention last week when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced at a rally marking the sixth anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death that he will not recognize Israel as a legitimate Jewish state.

No surprise there, of course. This has always been the official position of the so-called "Palestinians," ever since Arafat, an Egyptian, adopted the name in a propaganda coup designed to launch what has become a very successful asymmetrical terror war lasting about 46 years.

Abbas added, however, that he planned "to continue in Arafat's footsteps" until the Palestinians achieve an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, the refugees return to their homes and lands and all prisoners are released from Israeli jail.

Continue in Arafat's footsteps.

That is a very instructive statement.

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What does that mean?

What were Arafat's footsteps?

Just where is Abbas walking?

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As a longtime student of Arafat, I am wondering if this is an admission by Abbas that he plans to engage in wholesale fraud and massive theft of his own people? That's what Arafat did. Did you know Arafat, the fedayeen, died with billions of dollars stashed away in foreign banks? I'm sure Abbas knows. Is this what he means about footsteps?

Or maybe he means he intends to kill Americans, including diplomats, if he ever gets the chance – slaughtering them in cold blood, as Arafat did in 1973.

Or maybe he means that he intends to continue killing innocent civilians, preferably Jewish, in airline hijackings, at Olympics festivities, in airport massacres and in bombings and shootings as did his predecessor, whom I have dubbed the "godfather of modern Islamic terrorism," an inspiration for Osama bin Laden and other mass murderers who have likewise followed in his footsteps.

Or maybe he means something else entirely.

Maybe Abbas intends to be a practitioner of risky sexual escapades like his hero Arafat, who died of AIDS.

A former European intelligence chief recorded his own observations of Arafat's sexual antics in a book, published 25 years ago.

I'm referring to "Red Horizons" by Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the former head of Romanian intelligence. He relates a conversation with Constantin Munteaunu, a general assigned to teach Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization operations in deception and influence designed to fool the West into granting the organization recognition.

"I just called the microphone monitoring center to ask about the 'Fedayee,'" Arafat's code name, explained Munteaunu. "After the meeting with the Comrade, he went directly to the guest house and had dinner. At this very moment, the 'Fedayee' is in his bedroom making love to his bodyguard. The one I knew was his latest lover. He's playing tiger again. The officer monitoring his microphones connected me live with the bedroom, and the squawling almost broke my eardrums. Arafat was roaring like a tiger, and his lover yelping like a hyena."

Munteaunu continued: "I've never before seen so much cleverness, blood and filth all together in one man."

Munteaunu, wrote Pacepa, spent months pulling together secret reports from Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian intelligence agencies as well as Romanian files.

"I used to think I knew just about everything there was to know about Rahman al-Qudwa," Arafat's real name, "about the construction engineer who made a fortune in Kuwait, about the passionate collector of racing cars, about Abu Amman," Arafat's nom de guerre, "and about my friend Yasser, with all his hysterics," explained Munteaunu, handing Pacepa his final report on the PLO leader. "But I've got to admit that I didn't really know anything about him."

Wrote Pacepa: "The report was indeed an incredible account of fanaticism, of devotion to his cause, of tangled oriental political maneuvers, of lies, of embezzled PLO funds deposited in Swiss banks, and of homosexual relationships, beginning with his teacher when he was a teenager and ending with his current bodyguards. After reading the report, I felt a compulsion to take a shower whenever I had been kissed by Arafat, or even just shaken his hand."

Can you imagine wanting to follow in those footsteps?

Can you imagine making such a statement today in the Arab-Muslim world and being cheered for it?