Late PLO leader and arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat. (AP/Enric Marti)

The Palestinians’ Nobel Peace Prize-winning icon, Yasser Arafat, gave the go-ahead for Hamas’ brutal terror campaign to slaughter Israeli civilians during the Second Intifida, says a key Hamas henchman.

Hassan Yousef, one of the founders of Hamas in Judea and Samaria, claimed in a recent interview with Al-Aqsa TV that as the terror group’s top man in Ramallah, his office was Hamas’ “door” to the Palestinian Authority. Yousef bragged that whenever Hamas wanted something from PA head Yasser Arafat, he was the messenger.

Arafat’s role signing off on Hamas’ attacks, according to Yousef, and the close collaboration between the terror group and the PA makes Arafat’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize seem like a sick joke at best.