It is hard to imagine a world without Arafat. He personified a people's struggle for longer than any figure I can remember. I think most Israelis forgave him his terrorist past when he signed the Oslo accords and for those few fleeting years Israelis and Palestinians lived side by side in relative peace, for the time between the two Intifadas. It is sad that he could not bring himself to accept the Barak/Clinton resolution of the final status issues. It is even sadder that when he passes the hand of Hamas will be strengthened. Ararfat wasn't the solution to Middle East violence, but I think we will find that he wasn't the cause either.

Or....
He'll be remebered as a murderous, lying, corrupt, dictatorial thug who subverted a religion and a people for his own anti-Semitic benefit.

He's got my vote for murdering thug who was willing to let his own people suffer in order that he might benefit financially and politically.

The Palestinians are not suffering because of the Israelis. The Palestinians are suffering because they have blindly followed terrible leaders.

Of course. The Israelis had nothing to do with all of those refugee camps. They just sprang up from nowhere. Oddest thing.

There is psychological denial on both sides, but your post is a pretty blatant example.

The Palestinians aren't suffering because x amount of them live in "refugee camps," which over fifty years have evolved into communities with permanent structures.

The Palestinians are suffering because they refuse to re-imagine the world with Israel in it, and thus continue to violently pursue total victory down a road that only leads irrevocably to their total destruction.

It's hard not to feel sorry for the Palestinians, in a similar way it's hard to not sympathize with a junkie, but for reasonable people that sympathy is limited by the fact that ultimately they bear the full responsibility for their own destruction.

That being said, I hope Arafat dies, so that the Palestinians may at least have a chance to live.

:jackson

A refugee camp, even 40 years later, is still a refugee camp.

Most Palestinians have re-imagined the world with Israel in it, in part, because of Yassir Arafat. I believe it is only the deluded minority (which Hamas represents) who believe that total victory is possible.

Palestinians terrorism is tragic, but it is a weapon. It is hard to argue that it has not worked to some extent. Arafat was a fool not to have taken Barak's offer. I won't debate that point with you. But the Palestinians now control much of the West Bank and Gaza and with the seperation movement, it appears that they will get more. Without the terrorism weapon, would they have gotten any of this? They got nothing between 1948 and the real advent of Palestinian terrorism in the early 1970's. Are they not better off now than they were then ? What was their realistic alternative to violence ?

But the Palestinians now control much of the West Bank and Gaza and with the seperation movement, it appears that they will get more. Without the terrorism weapon, would they have gotten any of this? They got nothing between 1948 and the real advent of Palestinian terrorism in the early 1970’s.

Before the '70s, the West Bank and Gaza didn't exist. Well they did, but they were referred to as "Jordan" and "Egypt" respectively. Terrorism didn't produce Palestinian jurisdiction over one square inch of this land. Both were the result of a combination of Jordanian and Egyptian largesse and the desire to not see Israel annex these lands after they were taken in various Arab-instigated wars.

In my opinion, the only thing that Palestinian terrorism has produced for Palestinians is 1) every iota of violence they've suffered at the hands of Israel since the Yom Kippur war, and 2) an unprecedented Israeli antipathy (in response mostly to the last two intifadas) that has destroyed most Israeli individuals' willingness to live and work alongside Palestinian individuals in the same society, which, in turn, has resulted in an enduring Palestinian economic catastrophe that will continue to harm Palestinians for generations regardless what the future holds politically.

:jackson

..do we get in bed with them or take the high road...?

Yes, "a refugee camp 40 years later is still a refugee camp". But, while over 100 million refugees have been successfully resetlled over these (actully) 56 years isn't it remarkable that just a few hundred thousand Palestinian refugees couldn't be resettled at all? Isn't it also remarkable that the UN has two refugee agencies, one for Palestinians and one for everyone else? The reality is that the Palestinian refugees have been used by the Arab world as a pawn to make sure that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not settled. Because the day it is they are going to have a tough time explaining to their populations why their lives are still crap. Gee, maybe it wasn't the Jews fault after all!!!

And "Without the terrorism weapon, would they have gotten any of this" is the biggest absurdity of all. Without terrorism and a delusional belief that their rights can only be attained by denying Jews any rights, the Palestinians would be celebrating the 67th anniversary of their own nation. That's right, the Peel Commission in 1937 proposed an Arab Palestine comprising 70% of what is now Israel/West Bank/Gaza and a Jewish state comrpising 30%. The Arabs rejected it and the Jews accepted it.

Then in 1939 the Arabs were offered a binational state but they rejected it because the British tied it to allowing 7500 Jewish refugees per year from Nazi Germany. Imagine the gaul of saving a few thousand Jews from Nazi death camps while there was open immigration from Arab countries. Then in 1947 the Arabs again rejected an Arab Palestine because it would also include a Jewish Palestine. Get the pattern???

The Palestinian lives suck because they can't accept that there are actually other peoples that also deserve the right to self determination. As long as they can't get over this racist view of the world they do not deserve better. Once they accept that Jews have been in the Middle East for thousands of years and deserve a small spit of land on the edge of the Meditteranean to call their own there will be peace.

How are peaceful Palestinians treated in predominantly Jewish areas?

How are peaceful Jews treated in predominantly Palestinian areas?

The answers to those questions will speak volumes, about Jews, Palestinians, and Arafat.

Leave it to RDE to act as the apologist for Arafat while the jaws of hell are opening ever wider to accomodate the thug's bloated soul.

The death of Arafat should be welcomed by every peace loving person on the planet. no amount of rotational Bravo Sierra offered up by the feckless left will convince clear thinkers that Arafat was anything other that a selfish, murdering mafia boss.

Arafat is so corrupt that upon his descent into hell satan will say "There goes the neighborhood"

RDE asks a great question in regards to Palestinian terrorism: "Are they not better off now than they were then ?"

As outrageous as it is, he is right that Palestinian terrorism of the 1970s brought their issues to the international stage. An argument could even be made that the first "intifada" brought the two sides to the Madrid table that eventually brought Oslo. The early years post-Oslo saw a dramatic increase in the standard of living for Palestinians and a huge increase in international investment for developing the nascent Palestinian state. But, having reached an agreement to end the conflict, they turned Oslo into a Trojan horse. Instead of using Oslo to end the conflict and build a Palestinian state the instead used their new found power to turn their entire culture into a cult of death and murder.

So, to answer RDE's question, terrorism brought them Oslo and the chance of creating a nation. But they allowed their pathology to turn all of those gains into collapse. Since the beginning of this "intifada" their standard of living has dropped 90%, thousands of their people have been killed and tens of thousands injured, and their hopes have completely disappeared.

If the Palestinians had any backbone they wouldn't wait for Arafat to die but would instead string him up in the streets like they do to many of their traitors.

Arafat did have a chance to lead his people away from the fringe and possibly change the world by allowing peace a friggin chance in Israel. For some reason, perhaps ego, perhaps in order to maintain his power over his subjects, he declined the invitation.

Things have only become a helluva lot worse since the peace plan was rejected (Clinton era version of Oslo).

It makes me wonder: Is Arafat scared? Does he have any apprehension towards what awaits him on the other side?

As dark as it may sound, I will definitely have a cold one when he finally passes from this world into that dark abyss that waits to spend eternity with him.

vt: So? Sharon can be ejected by a simple election, just like many of his predecessors. The same cannot be said for Arafat; stop trying to draw some kind of moral equivalence between them.

Compare the situation in Timor Leste to the Palestinians' behavior and you can answer a lot of questions.

At some point, there will be a new flag over the UN. No matter how much is done to prevent it, it will happen. Years and years and years of failed promises and exploitation will come to an end, and the occupation of a homeland will end.

And that flag will be... Kurdistan.

Our guy red wine has a good point. Once Arafat dies we'll have a pretty good glimpse into the dynamics behind the PA and palestinian governance in general.

I agree that trying to equate Sharon with Arafat is the nadir of common sense.

So, will there be a power struggle? How will the palestinians handle the transfer of power?

God Almighty.

NRA=NAMBLA

"It hard to imagine a world without Arafat"

"Most Palestinians have re-imagined the world with Israel in it, in part, because of Yassir Arafat"

?!!???!!

Who IS this guy? Bizarro?

Me is good, rdelephant. How am you tomorrow?

VT-

Look up "Goodwin's Law."

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