Arafat's dead. Now what?

Great Debates
61

Blaron,

This is not a simple case of unequal distribution of wealth. This is stealing from the starving and using their plight to get sympathey to get more to support your bank account.

This is the case of a thug, who some still want to believe cared for “his people” and for their aspirations for statehood, who intentionally prevented anything that could actually result in statehood from ever coming to be. It would have gotten in the way of his personal fiefdom and the billions that it produced for him and his wife personally. A man who bemoaned the sorry state of Palestinian children growing up poor and uneducated (those evil Israelis and evil Americans! All their fault!) while diverting funds raised for their welfare to his personal uses. Enough to fund quite a few schools and hospitals. Enough to help to begin to build an economic infrastructure if only he had actually cared about the future of his people.

I may think it is bizzare that our society rewards an Oprah to the level it does while the social worker gets barely enough to live off of. But Oprah’s wealth is not evil, just bizzare. Arafat’s wealth (and his wife’s in perpetuity) is evil.

62

For decades we’ve been hearing that Israel cannot make any concessions to the Palestinians because that would be seen as rewarding terrorism and would encourage more of it. But with the focus on the Palestinians’ quest for new leadership rather than the latest terrorist attack and/or Arafat’s malfeasance, the Israelis can tell the Palestinians that there are willing in principle to make major concessions on the West Bank. They can offer Abbas a “honeymoon deal” and thus strengthen his hand as a moderate, but also threaten to immediately withdraw it if terrorist attacks resume. Carrot and stick. If (when) Hamas or other extremist groups louse it up then the onus will be on them rather than the Israeli occupation.