A clandestine undertaking on behalf of Israel, the Jets and the Jews.

 
Arafat's Isolation

Today's Arab News features a column by Fawaz Turki, about Yasser Arafat's confinement to Ramallah, and the Bush Adminstration's support for Mahmoud Abbas rather than Arafat. Turki expresses anger "that an American president, colluding with our foreign occupiers, would come to our crushed part of the world, throw stink bombs at our leaders and then depose them in favor of ones he prefers. Lest we forget, this is the year 2003, not 1903, when colonial overlords could pick and choose indigenous rulers responsive to their geopolitical whims."

Turki admits that "as a national leader, [Arafat] had chalked up a dismal record over the years, leading his people from one diplomatic disaster to another, one military defeat to another, and one act of social grief to another, without it once occurring to him to fold his tent and head into the sunset, leaving new blood to lead ... I personally regard his abrupt departure from the dinner table as appropriate, since he had worn out his welcome somewhere into the soup course. As the host, however, I alone determine the propriety of my guests’ behavior. Not some pugnacious Texan."

Turki's point might be well taken if the PA were a democracy, or even if democratic institutions were not absolutely nonexistent in the Arab world. After four decades of murder and mayhem, in Israel, Jordan and Lebanon, it is time to end the danger Arafat poses to millions of Jews and Arabs.
posted on 7/17/2003