The eloquence of Glenn Reynolds is showcased in this essay on the death of Yasser Arafat.
The Captain's Quarters expends a bit more commentary on the subject.
For all the crimes he committed and people he terrorized, the most ironic legacy Arafat left was the utter poverty and degradation he rained onto his own people -- while he and his wife lived it up on their money. And now the people of the West Bank will send him off with a hero's funeral, compounding the irony.
From Arthur Chrenkoff we get Australian Prime Minister John Howard's assessment.
I think history will judge him very harshly for not having seized the opportunity in the year 2000 to embrace the offer that was very courageously made by the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, which involved the Israelis agreeing to about 90 per cent of what the Palestinians had wanted... I think if Arafat had grabbed hold of that opportunity in the dying days of the Clinton administration then the path of things in the Middle East may have been smoother.
I wonder if we weren't just witnessing the Peter Principle at work. Arafat was a terrorist. Had peace and prosperity come to the Palestinians what would he have done? What talent did he have for leadership except murder, intimidation, and plunder? Of course he had to refuse the offer of Ehud Barak. Had he accepted he would have put himself out of a job.
Update: Power Line has more. Here's a sample:
Some date the beginning of the terrorist war against the United States to the seizure of 67 American hostages at the American Embassy in Tehran by the followers of Ayatollah Khomeni in November 1979 or to the bombing of the barracks in Beirut by Hezbollah that killed 241 Marines in October 1983.
Yasser Arafat, however, is the true father of this war. First Arafat created Black September as an offshoot of his Fatah organization. He presided over the operation resulting in the massacre of the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich by Black September in 1972. The following year Arafat became the first Arab terrorist to target Americans.
He personally ordered the assassination of American Ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel, Jr. and charge d'affaires Curtis Moore in Khartoum on March 2, 1973. (See my "Who murdered Cleo Noel?") Arafat himself presided over the Khartoum operation and ordered the assassination of Noel and Moore by short wave radio from PLO headquarters in Beirut. Moore and Noel were only the first of many Americans murdered by Arafat's terrorist thugs.
Read the whole thing.
Comments