The news of Arafat’s heart attack last week has caused quite a stir in the blogosphere. Charles is waiting for him to kick the bucket. Damian thinks he should suffer. Meryl’s even got a song about it. Unconfirmed reports of his death have caused some of the bloggers to cross their fingers and start “death watch” reports.
I wonder how bad someone’s gotta be for it to be okay to wish he’d just die already. How many innocent people would he need to have killed? As a general rule, I’m uncomfortable with the notion that anyone should wish for someone to die.
But I have to concede that there are exceptions. People like Hitler, Stalin, Milosovic . . . people who contributed nothing but harm and suffering to the world. And though Arafat has merely killed thousands, he is also responsible for the continued suffering of millions of his own people, by having elected to pursue a terrorism strategy rather than taking the necessary steps towards achieving peace and statehood.
So while I am not going to jump around gleefully praying for Arafat’s death, I have to say I won’t exactly be mourning him once he’s gone. He devoted his life to killing innocent Jews. If I believed in hell, that’d be definitely a good reason to go there. (If Arafat’s expecting 72 virgins, he’ll be pretty disappointed).
But then, of course, Arafat’s already handpicked his successors – all people loyal to him and with no intention of fighting terrorism. Will any of them really be any better than Arafat?
Mind you, how could they be much worse?
Update: Like any good personality-cult dictator, Arafat is having his advisors deny that he had a heart attack and claim he’s in perfect health. How long will they lie about his condition is the only question? How long will they keep propping up an inflatable Arafat doll after he croaks?