Sheldon Kirschner in the Canadian Jewish News writes about Israel’s strategic blunder in trying to deal with Arafat:
Israel’s formal decision to remove him seems to have strengthened Arafat, who is widely regarded as the iconic guardian of modern Palestinian nationalism and a shrewd politician.
By all appearances, Arafat’s stock has risen, both among the Palestinian masses and in the international arena.
Palestinians have staged vigils in front of his compound, promising to protect him from harm. It hardly matters whether these love-ins were fabricated or genuine.
More importantly, Arafat wields full authority over the PA once again. Arafat forced his first prime minister and rival, the hapless and ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas, to resign after refusing to cede control of the all-powerful security forces. Ahmed Qureia, Abbas’ would-be successor, is completely beholden to Arafat. Israel has gone on record as saying it will not co-operate with “anyone taking orders directly from Arafat.” So that leaves the already tattered road map peace plan in shreds.
The road map was in shreds long before it even began. But that’s beside the point.
Israel, in trying to threaten Arafat, has managed to undo years of efforts to sideline him and make him irrelevant in one fell swoop. And so now it has to deal with him again.
I don’t agree. I think the whole “Israel made a hero out of Arafat” line is largely an invention of the lefty media. I think Arafat just brings his own people down, rather than being brought up by them. I think it was clever of Israel to declare Arafat irrelevant, like bringing the snakes out of the grass. I don’t see that Arafat has been getting too much international support.
I’m sick of reading about how much international support Arafat has and how much of a “pariah” nation Israel is. When the truth is its the other way round. Israel has at this time more international support than ever before. They have diplomatic relations with China, trade with Turkey, the PM just visited India, the FM just visited Qatar. World leaders that support Israels right to exist are Putin, Vajepayee, Burlesconni, Shroeder, Blair, Howard, and George Bush. Israel has trade with South Korea and Japan. Sony, microsoft, motorola and intel all have major research facilities in Israel.
Arafat has never been more irrelivant. The bubble burst after Israel sidelined him, and now he will be remembered as the “guy who shook hands with and Israeli PM”.
BS. Don’t believe everything you read from AP and ‘other news services’ which is media-speak for ‘only one reporter was in the area, and when he got back to the hotel in Jerusalem, he shared the ‘facts’ s/he saw’.
Debka is reporting that Hamas is apprehensive to pull off another attack right now, since that might really push Israel to expel Arafat, and then it’ll look as if they were the reason for expelling Arafat who is the Arab Shimon Peres: nice to have him around but not leading anyone anywhere but into the ground.
Josh
Debka also writes that Saddam has been in Africa since the 2nd day of the war. They’re an even less trustworthy source than the AP