As of this writing, Arafat is on life support in a Paris hospital. The same country always playing both ends (the Jews, the Palestinians) against the "Middle Eastern" middle. French tecchnology represents a considerable amount of the Israeli nuclear capability. The escalation of Zionist military power dates to the fifties. Israel felt itself (with considerable justification; the threat of "Pan Arabism", an idea, politicized by Egypt's President Nasser and his political "vehicle", the "Bath Party", but never supported by the rulers of ANY political majorities within Arab countries, even the relatively economicic British influence upon an unstable Jordan), surrounded by hostile Islamic countries (a workable definition of the term, "Islamic countries", is endlessly debateable) threatened from all sides, even the "victorious ' WWII Allies, (regardless their relatively quick recognition of the new Israeli state). The immigration of Jews from Europe brought a new, cosmopolitan attitude to Israel, an urban attitude, forged from the "Holocaust", explaining their deep seeded need to defend boundaries accepted by no one but themselves.
Certainly, Egypt did not accept the growing Israeli state, nor did Jordan, or Syria. What Americans forget, is the fact of Israeli expansion in the late fifties (after the "Suez Affair", 1954-55, the reduction of British influence [the "official end of the British Empire"], and growing American hegemony, within an overarching construct of the Cold War. The Middle East took a back seat while nuclear proliferation obsessed the "Superpowers" (the United States and Russia).
Uh oh, (so much for background) they just pulled the plug on him (11:10 EST). So, now comes Islamic veneration and American spin. Now comes the Monday morning quarterbacking, the instant experts, the encapsulated judegements and explanations.But the people who actually know the history, should, perhaps think a bit. These days, saying the wrong thing lands you in jail.
Tomorrow is a better day to finish an opinion upon, for good or ill, a prime mover of international politics in the 20th and 21st Centuries.
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