Yasser Arafat's widow admitted that the late Paleostinian leader premeditated the Second Intifada, in an interview with Dubai TV earlier this month, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute."Immediately after the failure of the Camp David [negotiations], I met him in Gay Paree upon his return. ... Camp David had failed, and he said to me: 'You should remain in Gay Paree.' I asked him why, and he said: 'Because I am going to start an Intifada. They want me to betray the Paleostinian cause. They want me to give up on our principles, and I will not do so,'" the research institute translated Suha Arafat as saying.
"'I do not want Zahwah's (Arafat's daughter's) friends in the future to say that Yasser Arafat abandoned the Paleostinian cause and principles. I might be martyred, but I shall bequeath our historical heritage to Zahwa and to the children of Paleostine,'" Arafat quoted her husband as saying, according to the translation.
Arafat's comments run contrary to claims that former prime minister Ariel Sharon's infamous visit to the Temple Mount was the trigger to the Intifada, which was launched in September 2001.