The Israeli military has documents seized from Yasser Arafat’s compound in Ramallah which it says prove the Palestinian leader’s direct involvement in the murder of Israeli civilians. While no amount of evidence would be sufficient to persuade most Europeans, the American left and Peace Now activists of Arafat’s complicity in terrorism, these documents demand a verdict from virtually everyone else.

Among the papers captured by the Israel Defense Forces is an order from Arafat to the “Finance Ministry” of the Palestinian Authority dated Sept. 19, 2001. It grants $600 to three terrorists, including two senior activists of the Fatah infrastructure in the town of Tulkarm on the West Bank. One of the senior activists, Ra’ed al-Karmi, was head of the terror infrastructure, and the second, Ziad Da’as, heads a group that was behind the deadly attack on a Bat Mitzvah party in the Israeli town of Hadera. The order was given on official letterhead of the PA’s Office of the President.

Another document, dated Jan. 7, 2002, which Arafat signed, grants $350 to each of 12 Fatah activists, all members of the Fatah/Tanzim terror infrastructure in the Tulkarm district who were involved in several terrorist attacks. The approval is given in response to a request from Ra’ed al-Karmi, who, until his death, led the Fatah/Tanzim terrorist infrastructure in Tulkarm, which has perpetrated murderous attacks since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000.

Reading these and many other documents has led the Israeli Defense Forces to conclude:

1) Arafat is personally directing and funding the terror over which he and some of his supporters claim he does not always have control, and he has personally approved the allocation of funds to its senior activists; 2) The Fatah/Tanzim terror activities in Tulkarm are part and parcel of the PA strategy and constitute support and backing for this strategy; 3) the Fatah/Tanzim terror infrastructure is involved in killing attacks inside Israel (one of the documents clearly states the responsibility of the infrastructure activists in planning and carrying out the “Hadera action” on Jan. 17, 2002, in which six Israeli civilians were killed; 4) far from separate regimes, acting independently and spontaneously, the documents show there is identity between the Fatah infrastructure and the Tanzim and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade infrastructure and that all are controlled by Arafat and his associates; 5) Marwan Barghouti, who heads the Fatah/Tanzim in the West Bank, directs the Fatah terror infrastructure in Tulkarm and encourages his activists to escalate their terrorist activities.

There is much more in the documents, including details of the cost of posters to depict “martyrs” and costs associated with numerous other terrorist activities, including a requisition order for 3,000 Kalashnikov bullets.

Arafat’s “bookkeeping” is reminiscent of the way the Nazis kept meticulous records while they systematically murdered Jews. Middle East commentator Emanuel Winston, in an essay he e-mailed to me, writes of the “purchase orders” for Jews issued by German factories to the Waffen SS: “The SS, in turn, issued a transfer purchase order for the Jewish commodity, sometimes specifying special skills. The German factories created miniature concentration camps adjacent to the factory. There the Jewish prisoners were worked to death, with starvation rations and extended work hours and scanty clothing in all weather. All of this was properly documented with purchase orders.”

The latest captured documents and much other evidence should be enough to convince any remaining doubters that Yasser Arafat produces, directs and writes (but does not star in  he leaves that to the homicide bombers) a murderous terror scenario. His is the nest of snakes the Israeli military is trying to destroy. President Bush, the Arab dictatorships, European officials and one-sided “peace activists” want Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to pull his forces back before the job is finished. That would only allow these killers to regroup and resume their attacks on civilians.

Sharon would not ask America to stop its search for the terrorists responsible for Sept. 11 and possible future attacks. Why do we make such a request of Israel?