CRICKET BLOGS

2 Comments

1. Mark
   03/15/2010 at 5:00 pm

   I agree with tastofhevn. You really will have to study this for yourself.

   I will add my two cents and suspect many Americans will agree with me. First, forget about the Nobel Peace Prize as we now know it is more hype than substance. I think he encouraged Palestinians to hate Israelis. He probably behaved much like a terrorist but was cautious not allowing the outside to see what he was doing.

   He came across to the West as he was a man with a difficult job keeping the Palestinians at bay… he had to walk a thin line. I don’t believe that at all.

   I think back then many had the same thoughts as we had with Pakistan recently… never really knew if they were doing all they could to help us… or maybe in fact making it worse.

   Here is a very good example of what Yasser Arafat was about… look at this video of the Palestinians celebrating the attack of the WTC on 9/11:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrM0dAFsZ8k

   This was a rare video… not that it didn’t happen much, but that it was happening all over in the Palestinian areas and this was one of the few videos that survived. Why? Because Yasser Arafat jumped on this real quick and started arresting journalist that were taking these videos of Palestinians. He also was destroying videos of journalists that he couldn’t arrest. There was a point that journalist feared for their lives and feared trying to sneak the videos out of the country.

   The point that I am making is that Arafat could have used his police to stop the celebrations, but instead tried it hide it from the west. He wanted to make it a "remote" happening since he knew he couldn’t suppress all of them. All this time later while we don’t have many videos, we have many journalist attesting to the fact almost all Palestinian areas were jubilant when they heard of the attack on America.

   I don’t think he was good and made things worse. But most likely he did this to stay in power and be a world celebrity.

2. tastofhevn
   03/15/2010 at 5:00 pm

   You know, this is one of those answers you’re going to have to research yourself and make a decision. There’s a million schools of thought and they all profess to be the truth.

   My take, he helped bolster a hostility that the Israelis have been using since the 60s to justify aggression into Palestinian territory. Granted, there are plenty of terrorist organizations out there that are keeping those aggressions alive, but there are MANY more civilians that are paying the price for the incursions. The Palestinians are poor, don’t have enough land, have difficulty finding work and have very hard, insecure lives in general. Arafat tried communication, but was too impatient to see it through to a peaceful end.