"A silly unsourced section. == 

 I've removed the following paragraph: 

 In 1999, Assad had his right-hand man, Mustafa Tlass, make an on-the-record statement labelling Arafat ""the son of a whore"", in addition to comparing him to a strip-tease dancer and a black cat, calling him a coward and, finally, pointing out that the Palestinian leader was getting uglier. 

 An effective strategy was undermining Arafat through support for radical groups both outside and inside the PLO. This way, Syria secured some influence over PLO politics, and was also able to literally blow up any attempts at negotiation with the US and Israel through pushing for terrorist attacks. The PLO's As-Sa'iqa faction was and is completely controlled by Syria, and under Hafez, groups such as the PFLP-GC were also turned into clients. In later years, Syria focused on supporting non-PLO Islamist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. 

 One, no sources are provided, and two, it seems that the insults traded where very unlikely. span style=""font-size: smaller;"" class=""autosigned"">—Preceding unsigned comment added by    

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