Yassir Arafat, RIP

[Chris Alger]

A local op-ed gave the following on Arafat's death, pretty much following what I gather is the official U.S. line, so here's a counterpoint that follows. On the occasion of the death of someone "great," I think their should be some consensus about whether the person was pretty much good or pretty much bad. IMO, Arafat was pretty much good.

From the Rocky Mountain News, 11/12/04:

Had Yasser Arafat grasped the peace deal that was on the table at the end of 2000, he might have fulfilled his followers' hopes that he would be buried, if not in the Muslim Noble Sanctuary atop the Jewish Temple Mount, at least in the Palestinian capital of East Jerusalem.

Instead, following the funeral in Cairo - held there so that the heads of states that do not recognize Israel could attend - he will be buried in his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The U.S. representative at the rites, Assistant Secretary of State Walter Burns, was a finely calibrated choice, an indication that while the Bush White House didn't care for Arafat they have hopes of working with his successor. The new PLO chairman is Mahmoud Abbas, who became Palestinian prime minister when Bush's road map to peace was still viable, only to resign after being undercut by Arafat.

The new Palestinian leadership faces a daunting task because Arafat's legacy is terror, cronies and corruption. He was never truly interested in an independent state adjoining Israel, clinging in his heart of hearts to the hope that somehow Israel would vanish.

___________

The last champion of the diaspora, by Ghada Karmi

Since Yasser Arafat took ill and continuing after his death was announced on November 11, one thing that hurt many of us Palestinians living in the West was the apparent need for Western commentators to criticize and denigrate him. Even sympathetic writers felt the need to insert caveats to otherwise admiring pieces, as if it would be impossible to support Arafat wholeheartedly. In an otherwise excellent article by the prominent journalist David Hirst, writing in the London Guardian on November 13, Arafat is thus castigated for being corrupt, vain and controlling.

I have found myself repeatedly defending him during interviews on the British media in recent days and insisting that Palestinians are in a time of mourning and not ready to tear apart a man who, whatever our differences with him, was the father of our nation and a universal symbol of resistance against injustice and oppression. Otherwise, how does one explain the worldwide attention his last days commanded, the tributes of many nations and their leaders, the top level attendance at his funeral and the flags flying at half mast at the UN and in many countries, some of which instituted several days of official mourning.

The favorite way of belittling the impact of Arafat’s passing is the current debate in the West about the so-called opportunity for a new beginning in the peace process. The British Prime Minister Tony Blair has just returned from a visit to the US where he held intensive talks with President George W. Bush about precisely this subject. Both leaders came up with the optimistic assessment that, with the “obstacle to peace,” Arafat, out of the way, the path is now clear to re-start peace talks. There was also yet another announcement about the creation of a Palestinian state after four years. Elsewhere, much is being said about the positive reactions to the new era that is now starting in the Middle East and how it was that a change of Palestinian leadership was the crucial first step.

The assumption underlying these assertions that no one questions is that Arafat was the real problem. This total reversal of the truth is an astonishing triumph for the Israeli version of events. By an amazing sleight of hand, Israel has managed to transform a man who was the only Palestinian leader to have made peace with it into the biggest obstacle to such a peace. And, more astonishingly, most “experts” in Britain and America agree.

Of course this is only the latest and most deadly example of what I call “Arafat-bashing.” Israel’s vicious demonization campaign against Arafat – he is a terrorist, he rejected Israel’s “generous offer” at Camp David in 2000, he orchestrated the Intifada and the suicide bombings etc – took firm hold in the West in the past few years, and also, regrettably, in some Arab and Palestinian circles. All those who hoped thereby to destroy him, must now be shocked and infuriated by the evidence of his iconic status all around them and the indestructibility of a man who is now a legend.

I vividly remember our first meeting in Beirut in 1976. The PLO was then at the zenith of its power and I went to tell him about my political activism for the cause in London. His personal, almost intimate, style, as if he had always known me, his charisma, his sharp intelligence and his humor are forever imprinted in my memory. We met many times afterwards, but I always felt that same sense of personal, paternal attention, as if he had unquestioningly added me to the wider Palestinian family of which he was head. I have no doubt that all others who met him felt some version of the same. His loss is irreparable, not only because no one else can unify the Palestinians inside and outside or has his grasp of treacherous inter-Arab politics, or commands such devotion in his followers, but also because he was the last representative and advocate of the Palestinian diaspora.

Even though he had returned to Palestine in 1994, without him the exiled Palestinians have no voice and no relevance. Marginalized by the Oslo Accords, they lost more ground with each new twist of events in the occupied territories. All attention was focused on the occupation and that sector of the Palestinian people, about a third of the total. No one thinks much about the 5 million, including the refugees, living outside, and their needs and priorities. Arafat was our last champion, the only one who might have made a deal to ensure the return, at least of some of us. As we look to an uncertain future without him, we wonder who can fill that role and ensure that the Palestinian nation is not fragmented into the ghettoes of occupation, but remains indivisible and united in the fight against Israel.

Ghada Karmi is a leading Palestinian political activist based in London, who had to leave Jerusalem in 1948. She is currently working on a book provisionally titled, All Dreams Must End: A Unitary State in Israel/Palestine.

[ThaSaltCracka]

I stoped reading halfway through.

How anyone can support a man who essentially advocated killing innocent civilians is beyond me.

[jesusarenque]

[ QUOTE ]
I stoped reading halfway through.

How anyone can support a man who essentially advocated killing innocent civilians is beyond me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't. That is why Ariel Sharon needs to go.

[slickpoppa]

God killed innocent civilians all the time in the old testament. For example, when he killed the first born of every Egyptian family. I think he needs to go.

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I stoped reading halfway through.

How anyone can support a man who essentially advocated killing innocent civilians is beyond me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't. That is why Ariel Sharon needs to go.

[/ QUOTE ]
Good point! Good thing Arafat wasn't like that..... take of your rose colored glasses and idiot helmet please.

[Cyrus]

"(sarcastically Good thing Arafat wasn't like [Ariel Sharon]..... take of your rose colored glasses and idiot helmet please."

Ya gotta take yours off, first!

Arafat was never the murderer that Ariel Sharon was - and still is. The Israeli PM was a notorious killer in his younger soldierly years; when he grew up, he washed off the bloodied hands and became a minister, so he had others doing his killing for him, others such as the Lebanese fascist party that massacred the women and chidren at Sabra and Chatila. (Remember the 1982 invasion of Lebanon?)

Now, he has the power of a PM to impose terror wholesale. Arafat's organisation, I recall blowing up empty hijacked airplanes, but I don't recall them killing off women and children with the incomparable gusto of Ariel, The Man For Peace.

[Chris Alger]

When did Arafat advocate killing innocent civilians, "essentially" or otherwise?

[ThaSaltCracka]

Since it is apparent Sharon is the problem now and not Arafat, who was to blame in the mid 90's? Rabin? Is it always Israel to you? Seriously, how can you possibly defend a man that was the leader of the Palestenian movement for what like 30 years? And in that entire time, groups(which he could have controlled) killed thousands of innocent civilians, and did nothing to try to solve the problem. Seriously!

[ThaSaltCracka]

Simply put, whenever a group like Islamic Jihad or Hamas(both groups that he could have controlled) bombed buses and nightclubs, he was essentially advocating it. You may say he wasn't directly supporting it, but he wasn't stopping it. Apathy is just as bad, IMO.

[Regulator]

The Munich Olympics in 1972 would be a good place to start.