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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Nov. 19, 2004 / 6 Kislev, 5765

The Arafat I knew

By Ike Seamans


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A former NBC News Middle East correspondent and bureau chief tells a different story



http://www.jewishworldreview.com | I waited before writing this column. I wanted to make sure that Yasser Arafat was really gone. After following his career from up close and afar for more than 30 years, I knew the man had a thousand lives and an uncanny ability to defy death. Why should a coma and old age be responsible for his demise?


As an NBC News correspondent in 1983, I was holed up with Abu Ammar (his nom de guerre) in Tripoli, Lebanon, while Israelis, Syrians, even dissident Palestinians tried to annihilate him. ''Many people don't want you to leave this country alive,'' I observed as he sipped tea with a bemused look. ''I don't care,'' he shrugged. "I will survive.''


In the Middle East, Arafat was the ultimate survivor, a consummate con man, charlatan and actor whose greatest role was heroic martyr. His supreme talent was a miraculous ability to escape unscathed from countless calamities (most of his own making) during his 56-year career as guerrilla, diplomat, politician, dictator and terrorist. He assumed the mantle of decisive leader.


CHANCE AFTER CHANCE
In fact, he was a spectacular flop. ''He was unable to bring his people victory, peace or an independent state, a record of political failure almost unparalleled in history,'' write Barry and Judith Rubin in their superb biography. ''Arafat's great ability was to get chance after chance; his great weakness was the disaster that inevitably concluded each missed opportunity.'' The late Israeli statesman Abba Eban certainly was thinking of him when he opined that Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.


Arafat mastered a technique that Yezid Sayigh, a Palestinian professor at Cambridge University, calls ''escape by running forward.'' Arafat would repeatedly seize upon the eruption of a major crisis to flee from a predicament that he usually had fomented, then intensify and prolong it to gain dominance -- and inevitably induce an outcome to his advantage.

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Because of Arafat's misrule, refusal to keep promises or honor agreements, spawning endless crises as well as extorting money from them, Arab leaders stopped trusting Arafat years ago. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak once angrily denounced him as the ''son of a dog.'' Yet, these self-righteous potentates will miss the little guy in military garb and checkered keffiyeh. By coughing up cash to help him perpetuate terrorism and obstructionist activities against Israel and, indirectly, the United States, Arafat was the perfect foil, an omnipresent, annoying agitator. This served the purpose of cowardly Arab nations that didn't want to dirty their hands or, in some cases, jeopardize American largesse that generously replenishes their coffers year after year.


Arafat could be witty, charming and gracious, especially with foreign diplomats and Western journalists. Depending heavily upon them to trumpet his anguished pleas, they obediently complied (including me). With his own people who revered him as the father of their cause, he was brutally ruthless when challenged. His most notable achievement was leading the Palestinian movement from near oblivion to the threshold of independence. His most humiliating failure was sabotaging the peace process that could have made it happen.

RUMBLINGS OF CIVIL WAR
In his blind obsession of total conquest at any cost, he inflicted years of unnecessary suffering on Palestinians -- ignoring their needs, overlooking government corruption by close associates and sanctioning terrorists who now may pose a major threat if they aren't given a piece of the lucrative action. When I was in Ramallah in July, there were ominous rumblings of civil war.


Significant change won't occur quickly, if at all. Arafat's immediate successors are clones without charisma who will simply pay lip service to reform and the peace process. Just like the boss.


Somewhere, Abu Ammar is smiling.

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JWR contributor Ike Seamans, a columnist for the Mimi Herald, is senior correspondent for NBC 6/WTVJ News in Miami and a former NBC News Middle East correspondent and bureau chief. Let him know what you think by clicking here.




© 2004, Ike Seamans