Arafat Dead

[Headache in a Suitcase]

What happens now? It's anybody's guess...

 

[A_Wanderer]

Drink!

 

[DaveC]

Oh good, he finally kicked the bucket. Hopefully now something can be done in the way of peace in Israel.

CNN has this big sappy tribute to him...

 

[A_Wanderer]

I am sickened at that Hallmark style tribute to a mass murdering terrorist.

As I said before, the terrorist is dead so lets drink.

P.S. there is a diference between celebrating when innocent people are murdered and when murderers die.

 

[drivemytrabant]

I am sickened at that Hallmark style tribute to a mass murdering terrorist.

As I said before, the terrorist is dead so lets drink.

P.S. there is a diference between celebrating when innocent people are murdered and when murderers die.

Harsh but true. I too raise my glass.

 

[drivemytrabant]

Have any actual names come up when mentioning his replacement? I have been out of it for a while so forgive me if I missed something.

 

[DaveC]

Apparently Qureia is next in line to take over.

CNN says he will be interim leader for at most the next 60 days, and an election must take place within those 60 days.

 

[paulrg]

Oh good, he finally kicked the bucket. Hopefully now something can be done in the way of peace in Israel.

...unfortunately, i fear, not until Sharon has passed on either. His history is very bloody, violent and intransigent. And some of the Hamas membership, or more violent elements in Palestine make Arafat look like Mother Teresa.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Well you see that is the point, Ariel Sharon is a democratically elected leader, he does not have to die for there to be a change in leadership. When there is a more agreeable PLO Arab leadership then the old war horse will be put out to pasture.

Dictator / Democratic Leader
Yasser Arafat / Ariel Sharon

With Hamas working to erradicating the PLO etc. it will save a lot of money on missles.

Muhammad Abd al-Rahman ar-Rauf al-Qudwah al-Husayni is following in the footsteps of former Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husayni (picture below), I am sure that if there is an afterlife they are in the same place.

A little bit more

 

[sulawesigirl4]

Regardless of your opinions of Arafat, don't you find it just a little bit tacky to be celebrating his death? For all his faults (and I know he had many) he was able to unite the Palestinian people and did fight hard for their survival. I say, let them have their moment of grief without trivializing and demonizing the man.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Your right the man had a dream, a dream of a Palestinian state from the Medditeranian to Jordan, a state where Christian and Muslim could live in peace and harmony, a single Arab state where the Jews were removed from the equation - I for one am glad that that he never saw it and I hope that I don't have too,

Arafat is Dead, Am Yisrael Chai

 

[Laura M]

Regardless of your opinions of Arafat, don't you find it just a little bit tacky to be celebrating his death? For all his faults (and I know he had many) he was able to unite the Palestinian people and did fight hard for their survival. I say, let them have their moment of grief without trivializing and demonizing the man.

 

[verte76]

I don't really celebrate anyone' s death either. Yasser Arafat was a deeply flawed man, with ideas too old-fashioned to be constructive. But there's nothing to "celebrate" in my book.

 

[Seabird]

There's nothing here anywhere near as bad as people said about Reagan when he died

 

[FizzingWhizzbees]

I agree with sula. Regardless of what you think about Arafat's beliefs and actions, celebrating someone's death is distasteful and unnecessary.

 

[Flying FuManchu]

There's nothing here anywhere near as bad as people said about Reagan when he died

Is this true? My impression is that people are giving more leeway to Arafat then they do to old GW but I could be mixing the reactions of this board to another.

 

[U2Kitten]

Is this true? My impression is that people are giving more leeway to Arafat then they do to old GW but I could be mixing the reactions of this board to another.

Unfortunately, she's right. Don't you remember? People saying how he was 'burning in hell' and all that? It got so bad we had to have 2 threads, a 'good' and 'evil' thread, the 'evil' getting more posts, and the jabs still kept leaking into the 'good' thread.

http://forum.interference.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=92510&highlight=Reagan
http://forum.interference.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=92532&highlight=Reagan

 

[Flying FuManchu]

Sad shit...

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

Can't there ever be a thread in here without fighting?

 

[verte76]

Can't there ever be a thread in here without fighting?

I'm not sure, that's tough to do in FYM, what with all of the diverse opinions. There is always going to be disagreement here, no matter what's going on. It's possible to disagree without stooping low and calling someone names and this sort of thing. That's when it gets bad.

 

[sharky]

I applaud the work he did with Clinton and Yitzhak Rabin -- it would be interesting to see what would have happened if Rabin had not been assassinated. But the fact remains that for the past three years, Arafat has been acting like a terrorist. I would celebrate the death of any terrorist, especially one that uses religion as a reason to fight. That goes for Arafat, bin Laden, etc.

 

[nbcrusader]

There's nothing here anywhere near as bad as people said about Reagan when he died

There is some truth to this. I guess US politics is just as mixed up as Middle Eastern politics.



Arafat is a mixed bag.

Leader of a noble cause.

Father of civilian killing methods.

 

[A_Wanderer]

In Memory for Those Better Than That Evil Man
http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/MFA/Te...mory of the Victims of Palestinian Violence a

 

[U2Kitten]

Yes they were better, and they deserve a tribute.

 

[jinn77]

It's never right to kill in the name of countries religions or causes. why do we feel killing is ok if it's government sanctioned?

 

[namkcuR]

A_Wanderer, you make me ill. You sit there all smug, suggesting we drink to celebrate the death of another human. Do you realize how wrong that is? The death of another human is never a good thing, it is always an unfortunate, sad occurance. I'm not defending any of the deaths occured because of Arafat, I'm really not. But you oversimplify things to the point of absuridity. There was a hallmark tribute because a lot of people in different parts of the world respected Arafat, and some people like to honor the loss of a life that meant something to a large amount of people. If you hear nothing else, hear this: You do NOT celebrate the loss life, period. No details matter, not even who the deceased person is. You don't celebrate death. If the majority of people in the USA had your mentality of having a drink in the name of Arafat's death, I would have no choice but to think that civilization had started its decline.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Well boo fucking hoo! that "man" was directly responsible for the deliberate cold blooded murder of thousands including children, if I am oversimplifing it is because my blood boils so very much gauging the suffering that he wrought upon so many innocent people; both Israeli and Arab;. The UN may love Arafat for being a mass murderer - and that is in no small part a reason that I detest that organisation - but that is no reason to make the rest of us. I have the good sense not to go around posting images of his handywork because I do not think that that would be right. He is a theif who stole billions of dollars from the Palestinian people, they live in squalor while his swiss bank accounts are lined. His life should be honoured like those at the Gallows of Nuremberg, the godfather of terrorism - he inspired the world to understand terror pays dividends and helped lay the ideological bedrock for todays groups.

So if I make you ill - I don't care, it may be offensive to your sensibilities, hell it may even be against Christrian principles and those of the enlightened terrorist loving global village but I will drink in sorrow for lives lost and in hope of peace to come.

p.s. Here is a gem from the Reagan threads.

In my eyes, Reagan was a killer. I hope now he's burning in hell, as he deserves to feel a little part of the pain he is responsible for.

Note: I am not saying that Arafat is burning in hell being sodomised with a broken bottle or such an unsavoury thing. I stand by this statement of my feelings on the matter, Arafat is Dead, Am Yisrael Chai - I am more pleased about the second part than the first.

The only world leader to actually say something about the man that makes any sense and cuts through the romantic image of the brave freedom fighter was John Howard

“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 Barack, which involved the Israelis agreeing to 90 per cent of what the Palestinians had wanted,”

Also please take the time to read this little article on the matter of Yassir Arafat and his contributions to peace in the region, the media has gone so completely and utterly soft I could imagine them describe Adolf Hiter as "acclaimed painter and noted dog enthusiast".
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/files/story179.php

And look, it's a movie on his legacy.
http://www.honestreporting.com/m/legacy.asp

 

[wolfwill23]

For all his faults (and I know he had many) he was able to unite the Palestinian people and did fight hard for their survival.

Fought hard for their survival? They why did he pillage roughly $4 BILLION from his people? He was a murderer (this guy invented terrorism!!!!) and a crook.

I don't believe in celebrating when anyone dies, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over his passing.

 

[nbcrusader]

Fought hard for their survival? They why did he pillage roughly $4 BILLION from his people? He was a murderer (this guy invented terrorism!!!!) and a crook.

I don't believe in celebrating when anyone dies, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over his passing.

Next time we "weep" for the poor Palestinians, realize how much money has been stolen from them by their leadership.

Report: Suha to receive $ 22m. a year from PA

Yasser Arafat's widow, Suha, is expected to receive a sum of $22 million a year out of the Palestinian Authority budget, according to the Italian newspaper Corriere De La Serra.

 

[Flying FuManchu]

I wouldn't feel comfortable dancing on his grave but I wouldn't go so far as saying/ simplifiying Arafat as "just a man wanting to help his people" b/c that seems like a mischaracterization to me.