The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
Tears for a terrorist
: I dread Yasir Arafat’s imminent funeral. I hate to think of the list of political and even religious leaders who will come out to praise a terrorist. But on the bright side, he will be out of power and perhaps, finally, we can deal with someone sane and civilized to finally find peace for and from Palestinians.
My wish is for him to be in his current state, indefinitely and in agonizing pain. I’ll probably not get that wish, but I can hope.
No Jeers, just Cheers for the death of that guy. Unfortunately, is there any hope that the guys awaiting to move into his “position” are more “moderate” and forward thinking? I don’t think so. I am going to guess they are more extreme, more entrenched in their agenda of violence, and more steadfast in there belief that they are fighting to the death.
Why is it that they can’t see that the free world, and Israel, just wants peace?
Re: Easycure
I fully expect a full blown PLO civil war as rival factions fight it out for control. PLO/PA is less of a government than an organized criminal entity. Once the big boss is removed from the scene, expect fireworks.
Could we schedule a memorial service for all his victims for the good people of this world to watch and attend instead?
There will certainly be no tears here for that old fraud, who only ever sought to be the latest mideast tinpot dictator.
However, let’s be honest about what will happen when he dies: Likud, a party that contains people who Israel to be a Jewish Iran, will smash forward, taking advantage of the palestinian temporary weakness to consolidate control of the West Bank and leave the worthless Gaza strip to the palestinians.
This is the real tragedy of Bush’s policies – because he exercises no restraint on Likud, allowing everything and anything (and then calls Sharon a “man of peace”), there is absolutely no incentive for the Israelis to moderate their ambitions to take over the whole West Bank and keep it.
The Palestinians shouldn’t agree to anything until they get something vaguely just – i.e. total control of the West Bank. And the Israelis shouldn’t agree to “right of return”.
Given that we know that the ongoing Israel-Palestinian problem is one of the main sources of support for the jihadists it speaks volumes about Bush that he won’t do anything to try to heal this wound – why? because the fundamentalist Christians have made it very clear that the President is not to criticise Israel.
The eternal question is which is better – the devil you know or the devil you don’t know?
Hopefully now Bush isn’t worrying about upsetting Jewish voters he can make some break throughs in finding a solution to the problems.
Pele,
It was never about Jewish voters. They may have played a role in Florida, but mainly his abolutely pro-Israel policy has little to do with jews, but rather the Christian fundamentalists who support Israel for some bizarre biblical reason, with some linking it to armageddon.
Oh well, there’ll be no appeasing those nutcases.
If God were here today the first thing he’ld do would be to get rid of God.
This may be a hard one for some of you to
realize but perhaps President Bush supports
the Israeli’s because he thinks that justice
is on their side.
Lets have Saudi Arabia and Syria and Lebanon
and Algeria and Iraq and Iran and Palestine
recognize the right of Israel to exist. Maybe
their irrational hatred for Israel has something
to do with the conflict.
“Lets have Saudi Arabia and Syria and Lebanon
and Algeria and Iraq and Iran and Palestine
recognize the right of Israel to exist. Maybe
their irrational hatred for Israel has something
to do with the conflict.”
Hear Hear.
Has anyone told Jimmy Carter yet? The poor dear will be beside himself…
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Remember that amongst those who founded Israel, and among the former leaders of Israel, were those who commited acts of terror.
Who should represent the U.S. at the funeral?
The most appropriate would be Former President Carter, but I think, for purely malicious reasons, that Bush should publicly request that Hillary Clinton attend on behalf of the United States.
If Arafat is a terrorist, then so is Sharon and all the other “wolves in sheep’s clothing” who preceeded him. It seems odd to me that you can’t see the hypocrisy in calling Arafat a terrorist. How many Palestinians have died in comparison to Israelis? 10X, 100X? Who’s the real terrorist. Does it make a difference if you kill an innocent civilian with a tank shell or a suicide bomber? No of course not. And in refence to the “maybe Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, etc should recognize Israel’s right to exist.” comment; maybe Israel should recognize that it doesn’t have the right to claim land based on the teachings of a book of fiction which half the world doesn’t even believe.
Israel took the land with force and threw out millions of Palestinians. I’m not sure, but when Saddam tried to do that to the Kuwaitis, the American army showed up to save the day. What’s the difference?
D, your history is SEVERELY lacking. Israel was set up by the UN, and when it declared its independence, was immediately set upon by its Arab neighbors. Yes, there was then ethnic cleansing, and yes, that’s wrong. But the parallel between Saddam and 1948 doesn’t even begin to work.
I’m not sure there even were millions of Palestinians at that point. There are millions of people who are now considered “refugees” — by much the same token, Vietnamese kids in school with you could be considered refugees.
But there’s an important difference. Here in America, we call them “citizens”. In the Middle East, they’re called refugees and kept in camps, kept from access to social services, etc.
Gosh, wonder why that is? Couldn’t possibly have anything to do with keeping millions of people aimed as a weapon against Jews, could it?