Our Top Story Tonight - Yasser Arafat is STILL DEAD

Seriously, Reuters reports that Al Jazeera says that he has died in a Paris hospital.

Arafat worked tirelessly for decades to help the Palestinian people fight the Israeli Crusade which is stealing the land and systematically exterminating the people in a slow, steady genocide.

Like all other attempts by the British Empire at colonization, it will fail. We (Massachusetts) beat them in 1776, the Irish fought them for 900 years. The Palestinians will prevail over the crime named "Israel" and live on their own land again someday.

Your comments on Yasser Arafat?

(and the flip headline is respect)

•  Oh Boy!

  by PhillyGal on Wed Nov 10, 2004 at 10:33:38 PM PDT

•  Another diary

  posted while I was writing/editing here

  Al Jazeera profile here
  

  by Robert Ullmann on Wed Nov 10, 2004 at 10:36:41 PM PDT

•  Google News

  It is confirmed, all over Google News (thought I'd give you a handy link. Also main page of course!)

  by Robert Ullmann on Wed Nov 10, 2004 at 10:40:53 PM PDT

•  Israel is not a crime

  Yeah that country founded by immigrants who legally purchased their land and restored it from a dustbowl.  The same people who accepted the 1948 UN partition plan creating two states.  THe same people who resisted the attempts of its surrounding Arab neighbors to "push it into the sea."

  And aparently killing small children through terrorism is ok according to you.

  Now look, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is a complicated one and neither side has been angels.  However, both people ought to live in peace together (or at least in peace next to each other).  To say that Israel should be exterminated means that your either lefty who suffers from Bushitis (everything must be in black and white, good v. evil) and listens to the propoganda of ultra-leftists or you're an anti-semite.  Or both.

  by Lavoisier1794 on Wed Nov 10, 2004 at 10:51:40 PM PDT

  •  seriously

    if ever there were a "grey" occurrence, this is it.

    by speranza on Wed Nov 10, 2004 at 11:01:59 PM PDT

•  Are you serious?

  To simplify the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the way you just did is completely absurd.  Gandhi and Steven Biko "worked tirelessly to help their people" doing the hard work of noble non-violent resistance to colonial occupation.  They also eventually got their way because the weren't concerned primarily with themselves, but with their people.

  Yasser Arafat was a corrupt faux-revolutionary who only wanted power and money, not a better future for his people.  He was directly responsible for terrorist acts that killed children on school busses in Israel.  He was indirectly responsible for thousands of deaths on both sides because of his incompetence and lack of courage to make and enforce a deal that would lead the Palestinians to value their future over their past.  

  There is a stark moral difference in "revolutionary" action as embodied by the lives of Gandhi and Mandela in contrast to the poisonous "any means to an end" philosophy of Mao, the PLO, the IRA and the Khmer Rouge (not to mention the Bolsheviks in 1917).  The systemic evil of colonialization (of which Israel is far from a classic example given the backdrop of that state's creation) does not in and of itself justify the pre-meditated murder of civilians.  

  by Wheeler on Wed Nov 10, 2004 at 10:52:55 PM PDT

  •  He is a Troll.

    Too bad we can't 0-rate diaries.

    by Juppon Gatana on Wed Nov 10, 2004 at 11:22:45 PM PDT

    •  Or Maybe Just a Half-Troll...

      by Juppon Gatana on Wed Nov 10, 2004 at 11:24:20 PM PDT

      •  I'm quite serious

        if you mean: am I interested in some discussion, sure.

        But I'm not trolling. Ignore it if you like. (But do go read the Al Jazeera profile and other coverage).

        (And I'm not going to snap back at Lavosier et al, I've said my bit, and I respect theirs. You form your own opinions, that's what we're doing here.)

        by Robert Ullmann on Wed Nov 10, 2004 at 11:36:09 PM PDT

        •  You are dead wrong on the whole issue

          ...would you please also take into account that one reason for the existence of the state of Israel is that 6 million Jews were gassed to death in the concentration camps and it was absolutely necessary after WW2 to create a Jewish state to preven this from ever happen again.

          I do not agree with a lot political decisions the Israeli govenment took and certainly not with their blood and iron response to the second intifada, but to argue for the forced displacement of the Israeli popolation - as you do - is in my view wrong and - honestly - disgusting.

          by jandsm on Wed Nov 10, 2004 at 11:55:59 PM PDT

  •  Hold on

    While I agree that Arafat proved fatally flawed as a leader, his early course was little different from Mandela's.  We remember Mandela the peacemaker and statesman, or Mandela the internationally known political prisoner, but he was also a ranking member of the ANC's armed wing. Mandela was a leading figure in the generation of young ANC activists that took the ANC away from the Gandhian path.

    The difference between Mandela and Arafat was that at the moment of truth, Mandela showed the wisdom to take the best deal his people would ever be offered.  Arafat, in the negotiations with Barak and Clinton, failed in his analogous moment.  But for that one fatal decision, we could be speaking of Arafat in the same terms with which we speak of Mandela.  Both these men wre hated and feared, called "terrorists" by their enemies.  Both were given a test, a moment of truth, one passed, one failed.

    by Dancing Larry on Thu Nov 11, 2004 at 12:09:49 AM PDT

•  I'm not going to try to defend Israel

  because that country's actions under Sharon is only surpassed in arrogance by the behavior of the US under Shrub.

  But Arafat? Arafat was the most unsufferable grandstanding narcissistic jerk that the Palestinians could have possibly been saddled with. Did he ever do anything to genuinely help his people? I can't think of anything. Americans aren't the only people who have been suckered by their leaders.

  Al Jazeera is going to report positive things about Arafat and negative things about Israel because that's what their viewers expect. Doesn't mean it's true.

  by mimi9 on Thu Nov 11, 2004 at 12:01:18 AM PDT

•  *sigh*

  Can we please find someone in America to take a balanced look at this issue, with a little more nuance than "Palestians are terrorists and Israel has a right to defend itself" or "Palestinians are an oppressed people and everything about Israel and everything they do is illegal"?  

  This is not a simple issue.  Arafat may have led a noble CAUSE, but he was not a noble PERSON.  Let's try and separate the two.  Ariel Sharon will be just as mourned in my home when he passes as Arafat is:  Not at all.  My only concern is who will the Palestinians choose to replace him, and will they succeed?  The impediment to success with the last few token PM's they've trotted out has been that they were either puppets or refused to be puppets and as a result didn't last.  

  Okay, my other concerns are A: what will Israel do while Palestine is focused on this (I'm betting on nothing), and B: what crazy-ass shit will Bush try with Arafat outta there?  (My bet is he'll try to get a puppet of his own installed).

  by switzerblog on Thu Nov 11, 2004 at 12:03:15 AM PDT