Arafat Dead

Last I heard, he was in a coma. In acutality, this would be the best way for him to go. He won't become another terrorist martyr dying for his "cause." As for his replacement, I'm sure they'll find another one just like him.

 

Latest info,

Arafat on life support and not expected to come off. I just hope the Israeli's and Palestinians keep cool and not try to use this to eithers advantage (unless they both want to make peace.)


Peace,

Fr. Bill Kessler

 

actually, arafat has become relatively moderate in his later years, and unfortunately i suspect that his death will allow some more radical groups to jump in and cause some damage...

and throughout, arafat truly saw himself as a freedom fighter. in some ways they are justified in thinking they had more rights to the land than israel.

AFAIK israeli jews mostly came from europe and the US in the 50's and 60's. the palestinians are more representative of the population that has been there for thousands of years. whether the jews that were in the holy land thousands of years ago are directly related to those from russia and so forth in the 20th century would be difficult to prove at best.

and citing the old testament as proof that the area belongs to the jews is sort of iffy, since the bible is obviously prejudiced with a certain point of view.

 

May I suggest that, in the future, you take the time to educate yourself before posting such erroneous conclusions. A good start will be by reading Joan Peters' "From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine" available at Amazon.com.

Here is an excerpt from the web site's book description:

"Jews did not displace Arabs in Palestine-just the reverse: Arabs displaced Jews; that a hidden but major Arab migration and immigration took place into areas settled by Jews in pre-Israel Palestine; that a substantial number of the Arab refugees called Palestinians in reality had foreign roots; that for every Arab refugee who left Israel in 1948, there was a Jewish refugee who fled or was expelled from his Arab birthplace at the same time-today's much discussed Sephardic majority in Israel is in fact composed mainly of these Arab-born Jewish refugees or their offspring."

 

interesting... though your quote, like my statement, is an oversimplification and somewhat taken out of context. still, interesting. please don't get me wrong, i'm not pro-palestinian, but U.S. support for israel, while correct in my opinion, is mostly i think based in their reliability as a democracy and an ally, plus being representative of the large jewish population in the U.S.

the chosen people. chosen by their god to live on the only piece of land in the area with no oil...

 

If people actually implemented the teachings of their chosen religion the world would be a safer and more positive place.

Thank God I'm an evolutionist.

 

Yassir Arafat is the worst enemy the Palestinians have ever had. He was brilliant at maintaining political power over the PLO, and later the Palestinian Authority, primarily by holding on to financial control. But he was incompetent in the field of public relations: Israel managed to paint the Palestinians as "terrorists" even while, in the senseless tit-for-tat violence, Israel killed far more innocent Palestinisn civilians than the other way around. The state of Israel was born in terrorism, and the extremist Palestinians used the same tactic in their struggle. But with terrorism being the prefered tactic on both sides, public opinion in the West has always seen Israel as the innocent victim and Palestinians as savage barbarians. It is hard to imagine anyone being a worse leader of his own people than was Arafat.

For the record, I am a non-religious American Jew. My grandparents all came to the U.S. from Russia before the revolution. My maternal grandfather went to Israel when he was in his 80's, intending to live out his life in "the homeland of the Jews," but he returned a year later, saying that Israel was a mean, unfriendly, and discriminatory country. He was disapointed by how he was treated, as an immigrant from the U.S., and he was disgusted by the way the Arab minority was treated. (My grandfather was always an advocate of social justice.)

The death of Arafat will change nothing. The Israeli politicians will find some other excuse for continuing to deprive the Palestinians of a homeland.

As for the Bible, (if you believe in it, which I don't) that can be read in two very different ways: "God gave Palestine to the Jews" can mean God wanted us to have the land forever; but it can just as well be merely a description: Everything is God's doing; if I steal your car then God gave it to me because I could not have stolen it without God's help. Same goes for land.

 

interesting you should say that. i went in to NYC in the 70's to interview with a group with the idea that i would spend a summer on a kibbutz. their arrogance and attitude problems caused me to walk out and i never looked back.

as i said, the main thing israel has been is a reliable ally, mostly because they need U.S. money, both governmental and private.

as for the bible, it's allegory and myth. at best, it tries to impart some morals, with enforcement via the threat of divine retribution... <ducking the flames>

 

Wow, what a sensible post and in the US. Watch out for revenge from the administration. I hope you used a proxy

 

sorry, did not mean to ruin our reputation...

 

aarons12,

As if it is possible to ruin our reputation "more" in the rest of the planet!

 

Guess we'll know in about 60 days:

Yasser Arafat dies at 75