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Ding, Dong: Arafat is Dead

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chris-uk04

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Is anyone else sickened by the endless droning about Arafat?


Chirac called Arafat as a "man of courage and conviction.” Reuters labels him the “Yasser Arafat, the guerrilla icon turned Nobel Peace Prize winner…” A BBC reporter admitted crying and, to my utmost disappointment, even the Holy See said “He was a leader of great charisma who loved his people….” Blah, blah, blah…


He spend 40 years deliberately murdering innocent civilians, yet he is being honored. He has more blood on his hand than Charles Manson, yet he is astonishingly revered. was responsible for some of the most heinous terror attacks worldwide, including plane hijackings, shootings, bombings and kidnappings - activities that went on for decades.


Not only did he murder civilians, but he stole from the Palestinians he supposedly loved. Besides rejecting a generous peace plan in 2000, that would have given the Palestinians their own state and freedom, he diverted billions of international money into his private accounts. Even the NY Times reports “As Yasir Arafat lay dying in Paris, the battle over his legacy involved an unstated but widely acknowledged concern: He personally controlled several billion dollars, and no one else knew where it all was….Last year, an audit of Palestinian Authority finances by the International Monetary Fund disclosed that Mr. Arafat had diverted $900 million in public funds to a bank account he controlled from 1995 to 2002. Most of the cash, diverted from budget revenues, went to a variety of commercial ventures.”


How many buildings, roads, clothes, hospitals, and schools could $2+ billion have been used for? There is no doubt that there is suffering on the part of the Palestinians, but it is largely the fault of Arafat. The truth is that Arafat never wanted to see a free peaceful Palestine because his worldly importance and the donations to him would diminish. Not only does he have the blood of the many on his hands, he has trampled on the futures of millions of Palestinians.


Now, can we all stop gushing about him?
 

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He''s gone where the goblins go,


Below, below, below!

 

AGBF

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Not commenting on this thread is making me uncomfortable. I am married to an Italian Jew (a man from a Jewish family who grew up and was educated in Italy.) His parents and older sister lived out the Nazi occupation in northern France and, after World War II ended, his sister went to live in Israel, to create a new country. She is widowed now, but she, her children, and her grandchildren live there. She is a loving woman and I worry for her when I hear that rockets shot from Gaza are hitting her town. I worry about my great nieces who take buses through Jerusalem.

I do not want to turn this into a thread on the problems of the Israelis and the Palestinians, but I do not want everyone jumping on me as if I have no sympathy for Israel when I say I cannot be happy that a man died. I very much doubt that my sister-in-law is celebrating his death, either. She had hoped for peace. Arafat's death will not secure that.

Deborah
 

AGBF

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Date: 11/12/2004 11:18:33 AM
Author: Feydakin
But his living did not contribute to the potential for peace either.. And him refusing to allow others to act for him and Palestine in an effort to resolve the fighting also would never have allowed for peace..

Steve


You may be right. I do not want to chant, "Ding, dong the witch is dead" over his corpse, however. I am more of the John Donne school that, "every man's death diminishes me" (some more than others, perhaps).

I felt that the dragging of charred, American corpses in celebration in Iraq was primitive and despicable. I do not want to behave that way myself.
 
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