In the end, it was farce. The person who pioneered terrorism into the scourge of the 21st century died a billionaire in Paris, kept clinically alive long enough for his “wife” and fellow “abus” to negotiate over the spoils.
Fouad Ajami recognized that it was a credulous world that was the key to Arafat’s murderous career.
The world indulged Yasser Arafat, gave him plenty of room to maneuver, showered him with aid and money, and graciously offered him a place of prominence in the great diplomatic game. (The oddest gift, given Arafat’s . . . habitual resort to terror, was a Nobel Peace Prize . . .) . . .
[Arafat] took the money of the princes and monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf — but sided with Saddam Hussein when the order of princes came under attack in the first Gulf War.
He took the "hospitality" of Jordan and Lebanon — but scrupled not at all when it came to bringing ruin and bloodshed to those lands.
He could forever hoodwink the Europeans, who were all too willing to believe the legend of his moderation.
American diplomacy in the Clinton years, too, fell under Arafat’s spell . . .
It is idle to lament the historic opportunities wasted by this man. The fault lies not in a leader whose weaknesses were known the world over but in the illusions and the hopes invested in him by outsiders willing to be deluded.
Only George W. Bush was not taken in. Bush ended the White House visits, declined a U.N. meeting and stopped the parade of “envoys” to Arafat’s door. Once Arafat lied to him about the Karine A, he was finished. Bush’s statement yesterday praised not Arafat’s life, but the hope his death creates.
Arafat himself now moves on to Gehenna, the fire that shall never be quenched, leaving his people behind in the hell he created for them — no closer to statehood than they were in 1948, or 1978, or 2000, able to achieve it now only if able to summon the strength to reject the path he took them down.
The latter hell is at least reversible. So we may now hope for a better day for Israelis and Palestinians alike.