"My beauty is hypnotic, no?"
Posted on 11/15/2004 2:47:49 PM PST by O.C. - Old Cracker
"My beauty is hypnotic, no?"
This is a requiem for Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat, the fallen leader of the benighted but unbowed Palestinian people.
He never achieved an independent state for his people or the return of thousands of exiled Palestinians to their homeland, but there was no question he was their unchallenged spiritual and political leader.
To the masses who live under Israeli occupation, Arafat was revered as a Palestinian patriot who represented their national aspirations.
He also was demonized as a Hitler by the Israelis who reviled him and in the end isolated him in the rubble of his compound, which was surrounded by Israeli troops.
Of course, there was growing dissatisfaction with his monopoly on power and restiveness among the younger Palestinians who joined the cause.
There also were reports of corruption and nepotism.
Last year, an International Monetary Fund audit of the Palestinian Authority found that, between 1995 and 2002, Arafat had funneled $900 million in public funds to a bank account under his control.
Arafat drifted between being a world-traveling statesman -- picking up support and sympathy from the Middle East and Europe -- and a revolutionary. It took masterful manipulation to reconcile the various factions among his supporters, including the strong activists in the Intifada.
Arafat's cause was to establish the nation of Palestine and to recover some of the land that has been absorbed by Israel for expansion of its settlements on the West Bank.
The Palestinian leader also had mastered the art of survival after a reported 40 assassination attempts, a plane accident and a stroke.
He kept intact the Palestinian Authority, despite the political setbacks and tightening Israeli cordon.
Throughout his first term, President George W. Bush shunned Arafat while overtly courting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Bush met Sharon some dozen times, mostly at the White House. Bush also dubbed Sharon "a man of peace," ignoring his militant personal history. That stunned much of the world, and probably some Israelis too.
The president strongly denounced the Palestinian suicide bombers who took the lives of so many innocent Israelis, but he gave the Israelis a pass when they went into Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza with American-supplied tanks, helicopters and planes to put down the revolt against occupation.
The PLO leader had been virtually under house arrest in his besieged compound for two years before he died.
The U.S. government ignored his plight and Bush never criticized the recent Israeli assault on the Gaza refugee camps. Hardly a day goes by without Palestinians being killed.
Once in a while, after an outbreak of new violence in what the Israelis sometimes call "the territories," a U.S. spokesman would read a banal statement urging restraint on both sides. But there was no doubt whose side Washington was on, particularly after the government vetoed seven resolutions in the United Nations condemning Israel.
Past presidents have understood the complexity of the Middle East and tried to play the role of honest broker in Arab-Israeli negotiations, albeit tilting toward Israel.
After Arafat turned down a peace plan pushed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and President Bill Clinton in 2000, the Palestinian leader was ostracized and Clinton blamed him for the collapse of the peace talks.
Clinton and other leaders had characterized the peace offer as the last, best opportunity to end the conflict.
But the plan presented a major obstacle that would have challenged any Palestinian leader: Abandoning Palestinian claims on land and property in Israel dating back to Israel's founding in 1948 and a bifurcated Palestine.
Bush ignored the volatile Middle East dispute when he first came into the presidency. After 9-11, he called for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
But it was half-hearted at best and appeared to be a sop to halt the al-Qaida recruitment of Palestinians who were losing hope of independence.
Every once in a while, Bush proudly mentions that he is the only president who has endorsed a two-state solution -- Palestine and Israel -- but on his watch the United States has done nothing. It is too busy trying to occupy Iraq.
Sharon plans to pull out of the hell hole of Gaza, but one of his top advisers said the Israeli goal is keeping a firm grip on the West Bank and fending off any move toward a Palestinian state.
Arafat shared the Nobel peace prize in 1994 with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres after they signed a peace pact that formally recognized Israel's right to exist and gave the Palestinians limited self-rule on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
With Arafat now gone, American officials believe the main obstacle to peace has been removed. But nothing will be accomplished if they continue to play on only one side of the street.
(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com).
Just how much time each morning does HT spend doing makeup? Must be hours... it shows.
Hey helen!! F off!
ditto!
Look now, I am president of the Ringo Starr fan club here in New Jersey and we are sick and tired of you FReepers comparing them. Rumors that they are related (and those ridiculous rumores that they are the same person)
...well, we angrily repudiate them all...
here take a look for yourself...do you see any resemblance...
see no resemblance what-so-ever, so please quit...
http://www.koyote.com/users/tschmidt/Funnyfarm.html
Here's a link to a site that has the song and lyrics. Thanks for reminding me of that crazy tune.
Too many clothes in that pic. Either dress her up or strip her down. I can go to Sears to look at lingerie.
We all Know that Ringo had a lot of help from his friends.
Heh. Funny comment by you.
herman munster in drag...
i really like the babyback side ribs.
Thank you.
D'oh!
That is precisely the problem, and that is one of several reasons the Palestinians must never be granted sovereignty.
There also were reports of corruption and nepotism.
No kidding. A guy with no personal income died a billionaire. A guy whose primary source of funding was international aid intended to help his people managed to become one of the wealthiest men in the world while the people the money was intended for starved, and still he gets a statesman's sendoff.
The president strongly denounced the Palestinian suicide bombers who took the lives of so many innocent Israelis, but he gave the Israelis a pass when they went into Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza with American-supplied tanks, helicopters and planes to put down the revolt against occupation.
This passes for news in some quarters, that someone should denounce the slaughter of innocents, and that others should visit retribution on their murderers.
The U.S. government ignored his plight
The US government is the main reason he died in bed, rather than lit up like a roman candle as he ought to have been.
Yuck!!!! Can't think...must puke...better now. How about if the Arab countries start treating the Palestinians nicely, then, we might pay more attention to their self imposed plight?
There's good old Helen out campaigning for Republicans again. This woman, Molly Ivans, and Maureen Dowd have swayed more votes to the conservative side than Carl Rove has.
Hellin is just p!$$#d because she was runner-up in the Miss Ugly Universe pageant to the Israeli contestant:
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