Yasser Arafat is dead.

[dodecahedron]

he's gone.

well, i'm not sorry to see him die. just the opposite.

from what i've seen in th news, many World Leaders praised him etc.
please let's not all forget: he was a terrorist and a murderer.
hundered of Israelis and Jews throughout the world are dead because of him. (as recently as a week ago).

true he was the leader of his people and he deserves much of the credit for bringing the Palestinian issue to the forefront of world affairs and getting them recognition, he was a bad leader. he squandered the opportunities he had to achieve peace and to create a nation for his people.

perhaps now we have a better chance of making progress towards peace.


apologies in advance for any hurt feelings to any Palestinian or Arab reader of this post. but these are my feelings and opinions.

[aviationwiz]

Reminds me of Nixon...or Reagan...

When Nixon died, everyone said how great he was, he was a crook.

When Reagan died, it was all Reagan, all the time, all praising, not a single person critisizing him for being a bad president.

When Arafat died, it was all praising, except for quotes from Israeli leaders, we'll see if it turns into all Arafat, all the time.

[burninfool]

Ding,Dong...the witch is dead.
When I was 7 years old I remember watching on tv the summer Olympics in Munich(Munchen) when one night they showed those poor Israeli athletes murdered by the PLO...I will never forget that.
Good ridance Arafat,hopefully the Palestinians can finally have a brighter future.

[Spazmogen]

...please let's not all forget: he was a terrorist and a murderer.

Arafat had been in the violence game as a guerilla since 1959 !

Arafat was 59 years old in 1988 when he finally (read: officially) gave up violence. He got married 3 years later. I wonder if a new woman in his life mellowed him in his old age.

For the past 16 years Arafat had tried diplomacy, which was a foreign concept for a military man.

I hope that another 16 years does not pass before a true peace can be negotiated.

[leg4li2ed0pe]

Later in life Arafat shifted away from violence. Whatever you think about his methods he was fighting a just cause. Israel and palistine are at equal fault at this point though. Both sides have screwed things up a number of times. I think the whole premise of Israel in the first place was wrong personally. It was not the right of the British or the UN to make palistine into a jewish state. I'm all for giving it indipendence but then have a democracy and whoever has more votes gets to run the country. Of course at this point its too late to get rid of Israel, so obviously the two state solution is the only one possible.

Disclaimer: I am a Jew, I can say these things.

[dodecahedron]

Later in life Arafat shifted away from violence.

alas, this is absolutely not true.
i don't have time at the moment for a more extensive reply, but i'll just say this: don't buy into the BS Palestinian propaganda.
the man was a terrorist to his last day.

[bill]

I find it hard to say anything nice because of his methodology. Leaders should lead and he squandered his opportunity.

I do hope the region can forgive and take advantage of this moment to finally find peace.

[ramlin]

I used to be on the left when it came to Israeli politics - I really thought that Israel had found its Mandella in Arafat and its FW De Klerk in Rabin. But it wasn't meant to be.

Arafat could never let the gun drop. In 1974 he said to the UN something like "I hold a gun in one hand and an olive branch in the other - don't let me drop the olive branch". After Oslo, he continued to hold the gun - he just couldn't let it drop and recognise Israel as a nation that has right to exist - he just couldn't and wouldn't stop violent methods.

In September 2000, I was driving my car to New Year services (I know you're not suppose to drive on Rosh Hashanna - but, hey I'm a secular Tel Avivian) - and next to me in another car, some guy shouted at me and said - "hey, did you hear - they've started the second intifada". The rest is just history, suicide bombers and death. Arafat killed the idea then of any peace between the two people - most (if not all) of us in North Tel Aviv realised we had been duped - this wasn't a guy we could do business with, this was not a man who could keep his word or had renounced violence as a method to reach the noble and just aim of a Palestinian homeland.
You see there was a point when a majority of Israeli's would have been willing to give the Palestinians Gaza, 98% of the West Bank (with the other 2% made up from land from Israel propper) and even East Jerusalem (minus the Jewish quarter and the temple mount) - indeed this was, more or less offered to him by Barak (Israel's PM) just before the intifada. But this wasn't enough - and we have what we have -
Arafat was a disaster and a murderer. He could have stopped the suicide bombers along time ago - he didn't - he even financed them (the Al Aqsa martyrs are part of Fatah - which was the organisation headed by Arafat).

One last thing - I went to a cemetary recently for a funeral. On the way, I saw the grave stones of those young athletes murdered by the PLO at Munich. I then thought of Dora Bloch, the South African who was on an Air France flight that was hijaked and diverted to Entebbe and was murdered by the PLO terrorists on board because she was jewish, then I thought about Leon Klinghofer, an American who was disabled and togethr with his wheel chair was wheeled out into the sea and let to drown by PLO terrorists because he was Jewish. You see, this guy, Arafat, was in charge of all of this as he was head of the PLO - just as he was in charge of the mobs that are murdering Israeli's now.

Oh and by the way, for those people who say that Arafat couldn't go against Hamas - think again. When he came back to Gaza in 1993 Hamas tried to assinate him and the PLO killed a few Hamasniks so that they would know who was now in charge in Gaza. Secondly, Israel had the same problem in 1948 - there was a group of Jewish nationalists who wanted to continue fighting the 1948 war and gain more territory - these nationalists were on a ship called the Atlenta - Ben Gurion directed the army to fire on the ship and kill the nationalists so that these radicals would not force Israel into an untenable international situation. Arafat, after 2000 had many opportunities to act as a statesman and reign in Hamas, like Ben Gurion did to the Jewish Nationalists, but Arafat didn't - he just couldn't let the gun down and renounce violence as a method to gain a Palestinian homeland. I even doubt he ever held an olive branch.

[dodecahedron]

welll said.

[ramlin]

...an interesting article for those who are interested, about Arafat and the intifada from the English newspaper "the Daily Telegraph"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... wstop.html

[leg4li2ed0pe]

Maybe Arafat could have killed a few people in Hamas, but that wouldn't have been enough. If he had really used everything he had to go against Hamas it would have meant Civil War for the palistinians. I know this is what people like Sharon want but its obviously not something Arafat was going to do. As for Al Aqsa, it is true that they have strong connections with Fatah but that doesn't mean Arafat could control them. If you remember, there was at one point an attempt at a cease fire, but the combination of Israeli targetted killings, and the palistinian leadership's inablity to control the militants made it fall apart. The real solution to defeating Hamas is for Israel to cut the support out from under them. The way to do this is not to bulldoze palistinian homes. I don't care if they are the family of a suicide bomber or not, all it does is it makes the brother or son of the suicide bomber all the more angry and willing to carry out the next attack. The way to stop Hamas is for Israel to stop trying to win militarily. They will never win that way. In the short run more israelis probobly will die because of suicide bombings but in the long run, it will allow the palistinian leadership to say to their people, look, we can nogotiate with the Israelis but you have to stop the violence too, and it will be better for all of us. When they try to have a cease fire but then the israelis keep doing the incursions and targeted killings (and thats not to say the people they kill in the targeted killings are good people, thats why I refuse to call them targetted assasinations), Hamas says look this cease fire thing doesn't work, come fight with us. If we can get a mutual cease fire, and then get israel to start allowing the palistinians more freedom of movement, thus making their lives much better, Hamas will lose its popular support, and at that point they will either dissolve, or it will become much easier for the palistinian leadership to control them.

[jase]

Can't say I'm too distressed by his passing either. Whatever your political cause, murderous acts against innocents can never be justified and I just hope that the next Palestinian leader can secure a state for his people in a just and peaceful manner as quickly as possible.

Arafat's death represents an opportunity that must not now be squandered.

[jase]

...an interesting article for those who are interested, about Arafat and the intifada from the English newspaper "the Daily Telegraph"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... wstop.html

The only problem I have with this piece is the author, one Boris Johnson, Conservative MP for Henley and a complete idiot.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3758846.stm