Oft-heard claims by Palestinian spokesman include the excuses that the uprising was “spontaneous” or a “response to Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount” or that “Arafat cannot control the street” or that the rioting is “a popular uprising independent of Arafat.”

Use the following to respond if your local papers print such canards.

The fighting and rioting of the last few weeks were not a sudden outburst. It involved logistical preparations, intelligence gathering, and orders to act. Contrary to western television images, the Palestinian demonstrations were well planned and coordinated.

Consider the order of battle Arafat assembled:

* More than 30,000 armed and trained soldiers ("police") deployed in the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat blatantly violated restrictions on the number of police stipulated in the Oslo Accords. Many of these policemen -- in and out of uniform -- participate in the shootings against Israeli army posts and civilian neighborhoods.

*Arafat has at his disposal the thousands of former terrorists who were permitted to enter the territories from Tunis, Yemen and Iraq after the Oslo signing or who were released from Israeli jails in prisoner exchanges or as a result of the Oslo Accords. In recent days he released from his prisons some of Hamas' most experienced terrorists and bomb-makers.

* Thousands of the "tansim" fighters participated in the warfare of the last month. These young men, members in the Fatah organization that Arafat heads, are indoctrinated and trained to "liberate Palestine."

*Thousands of Palestinian youth were trained in guerrilla tactics, including the making of Molotov cocktails, in summer camps run by the Palestinian Authority. Their indoctrination, which glorifies martyrdom, was also fed by the incessant anti-Israel propaganda of Arafat's broadcasting authority and school system. The ideological seeds behind the fighting were planted and well nurtured under Arafat's leadership.

* The official Palestinian Authority radio and television, tightly controlled by Arafat, continue to broadcast bellicose film clips, anti-Semitic sermons, and even orders to “the troops” about when and where to goout to the streets.

* Besides the weapons permitted by the Accords, Arafat's Palestinian Authority has conducted a systematic and widespread smuggling operation for several years, sneaking additional weapons and ammunition into the territories by sea, across desert frontiers, and even through secret underground tunnels from Egyptian territory.

Previous rounds of fighting show that Arafat skillfully unleashes his many military branches when he wants and can order them to cease firing as well. Arafat sits astride an autocratic despotic hierarchy and uses his secret police to whip dissidents into line.

Arafat ordered and controlled the uprising. But to those who say If he can't control his troops and the mobs, then what good is he? If he does control them, then he is a warmonger and not a peacemaker.