BY ROHAN PEARCE
@box text intr = The secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmed Sa'adat, was arrested on January 15 in Ramallah by Palestinian Authority (PA) police.
Sa'adat's arrest was in connection with the assassination of Israel's ultra-right tourism minister Rechavam Ze'evi last October, for which the PFLP claimed responsibility. In response to Sa'adat's arrest, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have announced they will no longer abide by the cease-fire called by PA President Yasser Arafat last year.
After Ze'evi's death last year, the PFLP released a statement that said his killing was carried out in part in retaliation for the Israeli assassination of PFLP leaders, particularly former PFLP secretary-general Abu Ali Mustafa.
Ze'evi was infamous for his racist abuse of Palestinians, included likening them to a "cancer" and advocating "get[ting] rid of the ones who are not Israeli citizens the same way you get rid of lice".
From Green Left Weekly, January 23, 2002.
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