Dispatching Arafat

The greater question of who was responsible for the death of Yasser Arafat can be answered with the question whom would it benefit?  Yasser Arafat was long past his 'best before' date.  He was a figurehead, a poseur, a man who came to prominence as a boastful belligerent, and whose Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine presented an acute menace to the world when it began hijacking planes and ships and murdering people.

They most certainly succeeded in drawing attention to their volatile and vicious campaign.  The world noticed them, how could it not?  And the Palestinians had in him a champion reflecting their values of tribal-inspired revenge and hatred.  Revenge for what, exactly?  For taking formal and legal possession of a land that was always a Jewish heritage, and which had never been without Jewish presence from antiquity to modernity.

A land to which Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian Arabs gravitated as late settlers.  A land where the original "Palestinians" represented its ancient Jewish population.  The designation "Palestinian" hijacked by the Arabs to give legitimacy to their claim of ownership of the land.  Under Ottoman rule, under Egyptian and Syrian and Jordanian rule the "Palestinians" were steadily denied sovereignty.

When the United Nations agreed on the fairness of Partition and the Palestinians were finally given the opportunity they had long awaited they preferred to react in a traditional manner, by refusing to live among Jews where they had always done so, but under Jewish governance; and they refused to share the land with one portion allocated for a Jewish homeland at long last, the other for a Palestinian homeland, at long last.

The Palestinians clasped victimhood to their collective bosoms.  And they were encouraged to do just that, to present as a piteous gaping wound to the world at large, and to become the orphans of the world, forever refugees, the responsibility of the world body.  While Fatah and the PFLP embarked on their mission to create a realm of terror on Earth for Jews, responsible for Arab-Palestinian disenfranchisement.

When, as leader of his people, and after a prolonged period of terror and defiance of the responsibility to build a nation of themselves, Yasser Arafat was given the option in 2000 by Bill Clinton and Ehuk Barak of finally agreeing to peace that would result in nationhood Arafat teetered on acceptance, then accepted rejection with the full knowledge that if he accepted peace his own would slaughter him.

Thus began - after an experiment in co-operation and the formation of the Palestinian Authority with Israel collaborating with the PA to help them form a nascent government, a police force and a system of governance - the first, then the second Intifada.  They simply fit the mission of victimhood and revenge more suitably to the mindset of Fatah than achieving statehood.

And it was at that point in history that Ariel Sharon mused he should have dispatched Arafat earlier when he had the opportunity.  But that time had long passed and with it the need to remove him for his time had long passed as well.  Israelis are practical, they employ assassination when and as required and in Yasser Arafat's case it no longer was required.  He was a spent force.

But tribal vengeance has no time limit, and it is more than likely if any human hand had a part in the dispatch of the-then-71-year-old Arafat, it would have been any from among his myriad of Arab enemies.  On the other hand, popular Arab/Palestinian opinion at the time of his death was that it occurred as a result of a Jewish plot.

That being so, why would his wife have blocked his personal physician from examining him (that same physician who stated his belief that his patient was suffering from AIDS), and why would she have prevented an autopsy right after death?  Senior PA elite had their own theories revolving around Arab agents and internecine plots.

Hoping now to have scientific evidence of polonium poisoning, when the element degrades so swiftly seems rather pointless, other than to hope against hope that Israel would somehow be implicated, and what and how would that benefit those whose conspiracy theories against the hated Jews would be validated, other than to spur them on to more hatred, inconceivable as that potential appears.

On the other hand, victimization is a mantle that fits so comfortably over the Palestinian psyche; it has brought them unending attention and sympathy and support and funding from a compassionate world.  One that has no expectations that Palestinians will eventually outgrow their dependence and clasp of the victim role, while pleading for the destruction of Israel and the return of something they never really had.