Yasir Arafat = Richard Nixon?

[Zeno]

The recent edition of The Atlantic has a very interesting article on Arafat, written by David Samuels. I assume that the article is reasonably true and accurate otherwise the reputation of this magazine would be in jeopardy. Although recently The Atlantic does seem to have a penchant to engage in petty sensationalism, note the recent articles on the coming war with China and the future economic collapse of Western Civilization. One wonders if their standards have degraded to that of British Tabloids or the Weekly World News. Be that as it may, here are excerpts from the article titled “How Arafat Destroyed Palestine”.

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As one of the leading financiers of the Palestinian national movement, al-Masri was close to Arafat for almost half a century……..

“No doubt Arafat was a great man.” Al-Masri says. “No doubt he had vision. Most of the people that you see now being very important, I see them wanting the grace of Yasir Arafat. They want to be in his grace. Ah, He thought money was power,” al-Masri adds, with a wistful glance around his study. The money he spent to buy the loyalty of his court, al-Masri gently suggests, could easily have paid for a functioning Palestinian state instead.

“With three hundred, four hundred million dollars we could have built Palestine in ten years. Waste, waste, waste. I flew over the West Bank in a helicopter with Arafat at the beginning of Oslo, and I told him how easy we could make five, six, seven towns here; we could absorb a lot of people here; and have the right of return for the refugees. If you have good intentions and you say you want to reach a solution, we could do it. I said, if you have money and water, it could be comparable to Israel, this piece of land.”

The Atlantic, September 2005, p. 66


In less than a decade Yasir Arafat and his clique managed to squander not only the economic well-being but also the considerable moral capital amassed by the Palestinian people during two and a half decades of Israeli military rule.

……[Ozard] Lev [a former Israeli military-intelligent officer] came forward and spoke to the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv about his own role in laundering hundreds of millions of dollars stolen by Yasir Arafat from the Palestinian people with the connivance of the Israeli government and international authorities.

The Atlantic, September 2005, p. 68

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Corruption, apparently, was rampant and pervasive and sapped up money and energy that could have been used to better serve the people it was intended to help the most.

Yasir Arafat and his cronies (which seems to also include the Israeli government) appear to be the moral equivalents of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Spiro Agnew, and John Mitchell - A despicable pack of liars, thieves, bigots, and hypocrites.

-Zeno

[Zeno]

A record. A post up more than 12 hours about Yasir Arafat and Palestinians and no responses. This is a very good sign.

So everyone agrees, Yasir Arafat = Richard Nixon, or worse perhaps.

-Zeno

[slamdunkpro]

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So everyone agrees, Yasir Arafat = Richard Nixon, or worse perhaps.

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Worse - Yasir Arafat = Bill Clinton [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]