Arafat's Dead

The weekend was a busy time for me so I wasn't able to make any updates. However, the big story is that of Yasser Arafat dying. I'm not going to shed any tears over his death, mainly because of all the people, Palestinian and Israeli who have died over the years in his quest to stay in power.

Arafat's power drew from the fact that he was the leader of a struggle and without that struggle, he wouldn't have the power base that he held onto for so long. He rose to power as the leader of the PLO, a terrorist organization that grew into the role of the de-facto voice for the Palestinians. And as a result, Arafat had to start playing by international rules. Of course, international rules would mean that he had to at least TRY to create some peaceful coexistance with Israel. Thus, you get the Oslo Accords and a Nobel Peace Prize for Mr. Arafat.

Then the infatada starts up in 2001. It had always been within Arafat's power to stop suicide bombers from destroying the peace process. Or maybe he wasn't as strong as previously thought. Perhaps he was too sick to be any kind of effective leader, letting the terrorist groups like Hamas destroy peace in Palestine because he couldn't effectively control the group anymore.

In any case, the Nobel Prize that he won was a crock, but the Nobel committee doesn't retract their awards. At least I don't think they do. Arafat will probably go down in history as the person who started the creation of the Palestinian state. That doesn't mean that he shouldn't also be remembered for being a terrorist leader. Arafat should not get a pass from creating such a mess in the Middle East when there was a possible deal that could have created a viable Palestinian state. But a viable Palestinian state would have clashed with Arafat's reputation as a leader of an uprising. George Washington he is not.