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YASSER ARAFAT AND THE DEATH OF ISRAEL
Please note, however, that Israel's founders never had "glorious dreams" for anyone but Jews.
CONTRARIAN COMMENTARY FROM ANDY MARTIN FOR OUT2.COM
YASSER ARAFAT AND THE DEATH OF ISRAEL
(WASHINGTON)(November 11, 2004) Yasser Arafat is no more. But it is Israel that has died. The United States is the biggest loser in Arafat's passing. Of course, appearances are all to the contrary. But we ignore the obvious and elementary truths at our peril.
The English Poet John Dunne reminded us: "No man is an island, entire of itself…Any man's death diminishes me…Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."… Israeli dictator Ariel Sharon, and U.S. President George Bush said Arafat was "irrelevant." They were wrong. Arafat's bell tolls for them.
Right-wing Israelis are dancing in the streets at the passing of Arafat; in the United States so-called "neo-cons" are tipping their champagne glasses; their "enemy" is dead. But just as Arafat outsmarted them in life, he has outsmarted them in death.
Arafat was the last of the great twentieth century leaders. He was a genius whose genius will only be recognized with his passing. Allow me to elaborate:
Forty years ago, Arafat began his puny movement to recognize Palestine and to renew efforts for Palestinian nationhood. Forty years ago, Israel stood supreme: powerful militarily, and reaping sympathy because of its creation after the Holocaust. In forty years, Arafat destroyed Israeli power. Israel's guns and atomic bombs are worthless and useless. Israel today is a pariah nation, condemned under international law, doomed to rejection by the world community.
Arafat, like the pope, had no divisions. He had no bases, no camps that could not be attacked. But history shows that the power of an idea always triumphs over the power of a gun.
Last year, while picking olives with brave Israelis in the West Bank, I heard them mourn the passing of the "old Israel," the Israel of its founders, of high hopes, an Israel anchored in 6,000 years of glorious Jewish history. Today Israel is a mafia nation, its young trained from birth to hate, to abuse their neighbors, to murder innocents, and to claim a conquest and "victory" that has destroyed their nation. This is the tragedy of Israel, an Israel that has become a hollowed-out parody of its founders' glorious dreams.
The defeat of Israel came at the hands of Yasser Arafat, a general who never won a battle, let alone a war, yet vanquished his adversary by delegitimizing the Israeli soul.
Would Israelis choose to go back to the 1960,'s, before Arafat, or would they choose the present? Most Israelis would quickly choose to return to the period before 1967, before Israel became a brutal and bloodthirsty colonial power and triggered its own decline. Moshe Dyan the warrior knew in 1967 that Israel must make peace or die. The politicians refused to make peace, and so his nation has slowly been dying. Arafat brought about this downfall without ever defeating Israelis on the field of battle.
What about 2000? What about the "offer" Arafat "rejected?" Can an offer be in good faith when it is not reduced to writing? Of course not. Should Arafat have accepted the "final offer" in Taba? A good case can be made he should have. Arafat was a great leader, but a lousy negotiator, and even worse administrator. Charismatic personalities usually are.
Israeli propaganda has created the myth that Arafat "rejected" a "dream offer" that is never to return. No one really believes that. The tragedy of Israel and Palestine is that they shed blood, and waste years, only to return eventually to Taba as the starting point.
Is Israel better off today, four years into the second intifada? Obviously not. Just as Africans never conquered South Africa militarily, Israel will not surrender to Palestinians. Instead, it will eventually surrender to the world community. All because Arafat delegitimized his enemy.
Whose vision will have triumphed in fifty years? Sharon's? Or Arafat's? Merely to pose the question is to realize the great tragedy of the Israeli people, and the death of the Israeli state. Even as Sharon imprisoned Arafat, Arafat delegitimized Sharon. The delegitimization of Israel by Arafat was a profoundly more powerful historic gesture than restricting the movements of a dying old man to Ramallah.
Even in death Arafat remains all-powerful. Sharon the mafia leader feared the power of the helpless Arafat, and as death approached stated that Arafat would not be allowed to rest in Jerusalem. But Arafat is already in Jerusalem. Arafat will someday be buried in the Noble Sanctuary. Where Sharon will lie is open to question.
What has Sharon accomplished in four years? He has spilled the blood of young Israelis, he has coarsened and corrupted his society, and he has wasted time, precious time. Thus, it is not an exaggeration to say that "Arafat lives" and it is "Israel that has died."
Why is the United States the biggest loser in Arafat's passing? Again, simple counterintuitive analysis presents the obvious facts: young Americans are dying for "freedom' in Iraq. Yet President Bush never harnessed the moral authority of Arafat and the creation of a Palestinian state to obtain advantages in the Arab world. Bush has mouthed platitudes but failed to deliver. Bush claimed the road to Jerusalem ran through Baghdad; we now see the road to Baghdad runs through Jerusalem. Bush has lost an interlocutor who could have made American policy viable again in the Middle East.
Arafat was an idea man. He was an idea himself. Ideas do not die. Ideas acquire iconic power in death.
No doubt the entire world will mourn Arafat at his state funeral in Cairo. How can such a man have been "irrelevant?" Rather, it was American foreign policy, dominated, and manipulated by pro-Israeli interests, which was and continues to be irrelevant in the Middle East. President Bush no doubt feels he has a "mandate" to continue his destructive policies. If so, it is a mandate with no more substance than the sifting sands of Ozymandias.
Like Moses, Arafat did not live to see the Promised Land. He died a little too soon. But even as President Bush and his allies in Washington celebrate, even as Sharon is exuberant at the death of Arafat, they should remember that history and fate play cruel jokes on the powerful, as inevitably they will do some day even on the United States.
No one should celebrate at Arafat's death. His passing reminds us the bell he sounded for over four decades tolls for all of us. If only others were as brave as Arafat in his fight for freedom to now, finally, accept the inevitable peace and bring these two tragic, warring nations together. Next year in Jerusalem.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12: WHAT SHOULD ISRAEL DO TO HONOR ARAFAT?
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13: THE COMING CIVIL WAR IN ISRAEL
------------------------
ANDY MARTIN is one of America's most respected foreign policy and intelligence analysts. He is contrarian columnist and chief national and foreign correspondent for Out2.com. Martin has been involved in the Middle East for 33 years and was a founder of the Revolutionary War Research Center, a consortium on guerilla and other forms of unconventional warfare. He also serves as Baghdad Bureau Chief for Out2.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639. E-mail: andy [at] andymartin.com.
YASSER ARAFAT AND THE DEATH OF ISRAEL
(WASHINGTON)(November 11, 2004) Yasser Arafat is no more. But it is Israel that has died. The United States is the biggest loser in Arafat's passing. Of course, appearances are all to the contrary. But we ignore the obvious and elementary truths at our peril.
The English Poet John Dunne reminded us: "No man is an island, entire of itself…Any man's death diminishes me…Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."… Israeli dictator Ariel Sharon, and U.S. President George Bush said Arafat was "irrelevant." They were wrong. Arafat's bell tolls for them.
Right-wing Israelis are dancing in the streets at the passing of Arafat; in the United States so-called "neo-cons" are tipping their champagne glasses; their "enemy" is dead. But just as Arafat outsmarted them in life, he has outsmarted them in death.
Arafat was the last of the great twentieth century leaders. He was a genius whose genius will only be recognized with his passing. Allow me to elaborate:
Forty years ago, Arafat began his puny movement to recognize Palestine and to renew efforts for Palestinian nationhood. Forty years ago, Israel stood supreme: powerful militarily, and reaping sympathy because of its creation after the Holocaust. In forty years, Arafat destroyed Israeli power. Israel's guns and atomic bombs are worthless and useless. Israel today is a pariah nation, condemned under international law, doomed to rejection by the world community.
Arafat, like the pope, had no divisions. He had no bases, no camps that could not be attacked. But history shows that the power of an idea always triumphs over the power of a gun.
Last year, while picking olives with brave Israelis in the West Bank, I heard them mourn the passing of the "old Israel," the Israel of its founders, of high hopes, an Israel anchored in 6,000 years of glorious Jewish history. Today Israel is a mafia nation, its young trained from birth to hate, to abuse their neighbors, to murder innocents, and to claim a conquest and "victory" that has destroyed their nation. This is the tragedy of Israel, an Israel that has become a hollowed-out parody of its founders' glorious dreams.
The defeat of Israel came at the hands of Yasser Arafat, a general who never won a battle, let alone a war, yet vanquished his adversary by delegitimizing the Israeli soul.
Would Israelis choose to go back to the 1960,'s, before Arafat, or would they choose the present? Most Israelis would quickly choose to return to the period before 1967, before Israel became a brutal and bloodthirsty colonial power and triggered its own decline. Moshe Dyan the warrior knew in 1967 that Israel must make peace or die. The politicians refused to make peace, and so his nation has slowly been dying. Arafat brought about this downfall without ever defeating Israelis on the field of battle.
What about 2000? What about the "offer" Arafat "rejected?" Can an offer be in good faith when it is not reduced to writing? Of course not. Should Arafat have accepted the "final offer" in Taba? A good case can be made he should have. Arafat was a great leader, but a lousy negotiator, and even worse administrator. Charismatic personalities usually are.
Israeli propaganda has created the myth that Arafat "rejected" a "dream offer" that is never to return. No one really believes that. The tragedy of Israel and Palestine is that they shed blood, and waste years, only to return eventually to Taba as the starting point.
Is Israel better off today, four years into the second intifada? Obviously not. Just as Africans never conquered South Africa militarily, Israel will not surrender to Palestinians. Instead, it will eventually surrender to the world community. All because Arafat delegitimized his enemy.
Whose vision will have triumphed in fifty years? Sharon's? Or Arafat's? Merely to pose the question is to realize the great tragedy of the Israeli people, and the death of the Israeli state. Even as Sharon imprisoned Arafat, Arafat delegitimized Sharon. The delegitimization of Israel by Arafat was a profoundly more powerful historic gesture than restricting the movements of a dying old man to Ramallah.
Even in death Arafat remains all-powerful. Sharon the mafia leader feared the power of the helpless Arafat, and as death approached stated that Arafat would not be allowed to rest in Jerusalem. But Arafat is already in Jerusalem. Arafat will someday be buried in the Noble Sanctuary. Where Sharon will lie is open to question.
What has Sharon accomplished in four years? He has spilled the blood of young Israelis, he has coarsened and corrupted his society, and he has wasted time, precious time. Thus, it is not an exaggeration to say that "Arafat lives" and it is "Israel that has died."
Why is the United States the biggest loser in Arafat's passing? Again, simple counterintuitive analysis presents the obvious facts: young Americans are dying for "freedom' in Iraq. Yet President Bush never harnessed the moral authority of Arafat and the creation of a Palestinian state to obtain advantages in the Arab world. Bush has mouthed platitudes but failed to deliver. Bush claimed the road to Jerusalem ran through Baghdad; we now see the road to Baghdad runs through Jerusalem. Bush has lost an interlocutor who could have made American policy viable again in the Middle East.
Arafat was an idea man. He was an idea himself. Ideas do not die. Ideas acquire iconic power in death.
No doubt the entire world will mourn Arafat at his state funeral in Cairo. How can such a man have been "irrelevant?" Rather, it was American foreign policy, dominated, and manipulated by pro-Israeli interests, which was and continues to be irrelevant in the Middle East. President Bush no doubt feels he has a "mandate" to continue his destructive policies. If so, it is a mandate with no more substance than the sifting sands of Ozymandias.
Like Moses, Arafat did not live to see the Promised Land. He died a little too soon. But even as President Bush and his allies in Washington celebrate, even as Sharon is exuberant at the death of Arafat, they should remember that history and fate play cruel jokes on the powerful, as inevitably they will do some day even on the United States.
No one should celebrate at Arafat's death. His passing reminds us the bell he sounded for over four decades tolls for all of us. If only others were as brave as Arafat in his fight for freedom to now, finally, accept the inevitable peace and bring these two tragic, warring nations together. Next year in Jerusalem.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12: WHAT SHOULD ISRAEL DO TO HONOR ARAFAT?
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13: THE COMING CIVIL WAR IN ISRAEL
------------------------
ANDY MARTIN is one of America's most respected foreign policy and intelligence analysts. He is contrarian columnist and chief national and foreign correspondent for Out2.com. Martin has been involved in the Middle East for 33 years and was a founder of the Revolutionary War Research Center, a consortium on guerilla and other forms of unconventional warfare. He also serves as Baghdad Bureau Chief for Out2.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639. E-mail: andy [at] andymartin.com.
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in which case, arafat's passing might help to heal the situation, as might sharon's.
LOL!!!! 5 billion stolen from "his" people...Suha forced to suffer in Paris living on only $100,000 per month (just the hotel bill)...Yeah, ole' yasser sure was in the trenches...
Even if Israel would want to become a "secular democracy", it won't be able to due to the Palestinian majority that espouses making Muslim law the land's law (as in the entire lan's law). As long as you ignore this factor, you'll be singing that tune until you turn blue but you still won't see that secular democracy materializing in the Land of Israel. Remember: you've got the Israelis objecting to your notion of democracy, and then you have the fiercer objection of the Palestinians.
And in case you haven't noticed...the Blacks in S. Africa weren't espousing a religious state nor was the apartheid regime a religious semi-theocracy.
.... embezzling their money and ensuring that there would be no smooth transition of power after he was gone. Such a deal.
Wehrmacht Wendy: "He may not have been perfect but he was and is powerful in that he helped make the plight of the Palestinians known to the world, despite the Zionists' efforts to sweep it under the rug and out of view."
And by prolonging that plight through the ineptitude of his (very very very lucrative) "leadership," in which he time and again prevented the Palestinian state he said he wanted from coming into being, so that he could keep sending Suha in Paris that million-a-month as his people starved.
Wehrmach Wendy: "yammity yammity yammity"
Whatever.
@%<
He was a terrorist. Not only he killed Jews but also Christians and destroyed Lebanon.
When the "palestinians" invaded Lebanon, Yasser's boys massacred village after village of unarmed Christian arabs...check your history books, History buff. This, on the tails of Black September, where king Hussein slaughtered 20,000 PLO after they tried to overthrow the kingdom...
When Jordan expelled the PLO in 1970 after killing over 3,000 "Palestinians", Arafat and his followers settled in Lebanon, where they virtually stablished a state inside the state, from which they committed terrorist attacks against Israel.
The Lebaness Christian population resented the Palestinian presence, which threatened to transform Lebanon, the only democracy in the Arab world, to a totalitarian country.
Massacres:
The first one was committed in the monastery of Deir Ayach (September 3, 1975), where the Palestinians murdered three monks: Boutros Sassine, Antoine Tamini and Hanna Maksoud.
The Christians living nearby fled their town, which the attackers laid to waste.
The Palestinians, under the leadership of George Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh also attacked the town of Beit Mellat and murdered all the inhabitants they could catch.
But the critical year was 1976.
January 15: the Palestinians laid to waste Kab Elias, a mixed town of Christians and Muslims, in the Bekaa valley.
Ten days later, 16 Christians were murdered and 23 wounded. The Christians started their exodus to Zahle, East Beirut and Jounieh.
In at least two towns, Damour and Jieh, the Palestinian gangs cut up the fingers of all the Christian children.
The churches in Damour were profaned and 300 inhabitants massacred.
January 19: the town of Hoche Barada was completely destroyed.
Another group founded by the Palestinians, the "Arab Lebanon Army", destroyed the town of Aintours. Three leaders of the group received the order of carrying out massacres aimed to submit the Lebaness Christians to the Arafat's state, which was taking shape.
Samir Abou Zahr was the leader of the massacre in Emir Bechir, where the victims were murdered while sleeping.
Mostapha Sleiman made the town of Checa be laid to waste, and Moiin Hatoum attacked the headquarters of Khyam and murdered over 30 Lebaness soldiers.
May 31: Syria invaded Lebanon, with the funny excuse that its presence would protect the Christians.
As soon as an army of tens of thousands Syrian soldiers were there,they started the opposite opperation. As a consequence of their bombings, over 500 Christian civilians were killed.
The next year, the Syrians murdered Kemal Jumblat and dispatched groups of soldiers to submit the Christian towns,where over 1,000 inhabitants were murdered. Just in Deir Dourit,completely laid to waste, 273 people were murdered.
1978: end of the free Lebanon.
Sami Khatib, appointed by the Syrian government as security agent, was responsible for the detention, torture and disappearance of thousands Lebaness opposed to the invasion.
June 27:
A Syrian squadron commanded by Ali Dib dragged 20 young off their beds in Kaa and Ras-Baalbeck and executed them by firing squad without trial or charges.
July 1:
The private militia of Rifaat Assad, brother of the Syrian president, laid siege to the areas which were still free in the suburbs of Beirut, and made them bomb for five days and five nights without interruption. Over 60 civilians were killed and 300 wounded.
August 1979:
Syrians and Palestinians destroyed the towns of Niha, Deir Bella and Douma.
1980-1981:
The Syrian Palestinian brutality spread to finish up with all resistence.
February 24: the director of the magazine "Hawadess", Selim Laouzi was abducted by the Syrians on his way to the airport, tortured and murdered, and his body was found mutilated in the wood of Aramoun.
July 23:
Riad Taha, president of the media, was murdered in Raouche.
March 1981:
The Christian town of Zahleh was bombed and the nun Marie Sophie Zoghbi was murdered when whe was trying to help the victims.
2,000 Christians were killed by the bombings which followed in East Beirut, under the command of the Palestinian Ahmad Ismail.
September 4, 1981: The Frech ambassador for Lebanon, Louis Delamarre was murdered by the Syrians.
Etc., etc. We could go on telling more killings. For instance, two or three years later, the Spanish ambassador for Lebanon, Arístegui, and two of his relativesm were killed by Palestinian terrorists.
During those years many Lebaness had to flee their country (between 600,000 and 900,000). Over one half of them were Christians.
Oh, hell, I'll quote one little bit about him: "In In re Martin-Trigona, the Illinois Supreme Court denied an applicant admission to the bar in part due to correspondence sent to the First District Committee on Character and Fitness, in which he made false and defamatory charges against the Committee, its Counsel, the General Assembly, the Illinois Supreme Court, and the Illinois Bar. See In re Martin-Trigona, 302 N.E.2d 68 (Ill. 1973). The applicant had also filed several meritless and defamatory motions against judges, and "in the course of other business relations," wrote a disparaging letter to a lawyer suffering from cerebral palsy, which contained insulting comments about his disability. Id. at 73. The Court indicated that an attorney who engaged in such conduct as exhibited by the applicant would warrant disciplinary action. See id."
http://www.law.cornell.edu/ethics/il/narr/IL_NARR_3.HTM
This one's also fun: http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/2003-07-31/news/norman.html
@%<
Indy really is:
1/3 Pravda
1/3 Weekly World News
1/3 Mein Kampf
As for Arafat - he's the genius who has managed to be in the position of having to beg for the chance to be allowed to bargain what he was offered over 50 years ago, paupering his people all the while, and squirrelling a way millions.
The person who made the word Palestinian near- synonymous with the "terrorist".
If that's ALL he did - he'd just be a schmuck. As he was responsible for the death of scores of innocent people - he's a lot worse than that.
May he rot in hell.
PK
Hey, Wehrmacht Wendy, looks like another one of your comrades turns out to be a you-know-what. So you do what comes most naturally to you: you blame the messenger.
Martin-Trigona sounds _made_ for you, Wehrmacht Wendy. A self-appointed "leading expert" on the Israeli-Palestine conflict, a political whack, and a documented Jew-hater posing as a mere "anti-Zionist." Sure you're you too are not related?
@%<