Former US President Jimmy Carter calls Arafat a "powerful human symbol

[cal04]

Former US President Jimmy Carter called Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) "a powerful human symbol and forceful advocate" who united Palestinians in their pursuit of a homeland. "Yasser Arafat's death marks the end of an era and will no doubt be painfully felt by Palestinians throughout the Middle East and elsewhere in the world," Carter said.

"He was the father of the modern Palestinian nationalist movement. A powerful human symbol and forceful advocate, Palestinians united behind him in their pursuit of a homeland," he said in a statement distributed by his Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center.

He said that while Arafat provided "indispensable leadership to a revolutionary movement" and played a key role in forging a peace agreement with Israel in 1993, he was excluded from negotiations in recent years. "My hope is that an emerging Palestinian leadership can benefit from Arafat's experiences, be welcomed to the peace process by (Israeli) Prime Minister (Ariel) Sharon and (US) President (George W.) Bush, and be successful in helping to forge a Palestinian state living in harmony with their Israeli neighbors," Carter said.

Carter "will not be attending the funeral," said Jon Moor, a Carter Center spokesman.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041111/en_afp/mideast_arafat_carter_041111160018

[Maat]

1. I'm proud of Jimmy Carter.

Knows how to phrase things. Diplomacy. Oh, yeah, I haven't seen much of that lately.

[MountainLaurel]

2. Breaks my heart every time I see him

He is a true leader (and a true Christian), so unlike the cabal currently in power.

[AspenRose]

4. No kidding

The man emanates wisdom.

He WARNED us about the election debacle.....he WARNED us.

We really need to listen carefully to him whenever he speaks. He speaks the truth.

[gatorboy]

3. And probably the last time you'll see it.

I can see the Repubs sharpening their Talking Point knives already:

"See! Carter is calling a terrorist a 'powerful human!' Democrats love the Terrorists!!! WAAAA WAAAA WAAA!!!!"

[cal04]

5. Vatican praises Arafat for Palestinian vision

although they criticised him for not signing on at camp david.)

The Vatican has praised Yasser Arafat as a charismatic leader who struggled to win independence for his people, and repeated its support of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Pope John Paul, who last met Arafat in 2001, retreated into private prayer when he was told of the death of the Palestinian leader earlier on Thursday in Paris, a Vatican source said.

The Pope, who made a historic trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2000, sent a message saying he was particularly close to the Palestinian people "in this hour of sadness".

The 84-year-old Pope's message said he prayed that the "star of harmony" would soon bring peace to the Holy Land and that both Israelis and Palestinians could live "reconciled among themselves as two independent and sovereign states".

Earlier, a statement by the Vatican's chief spokesman called Mr Arafat the "illustrious deceased" and asked God to grant eternal rest to his soul.

"The Holy See joins the pain of the Palestinian people for the passing of President Yasser Arafat. He was a leader of great charisma who loved his people and tried to guide them towards national independence," said the statement by chief spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

The official statement was bound to displease Israel because it made no mention of militant attacks, which the Jewish state blamed on Mr Arafat and insists must stop before the stalled peace process can get back on track.

In recent years the Vatican continued to recognise Mr Arafat as the legitimate leader of the Palestinians after Washington and Israel had written him off. But Vatican officials privately criticised him for what one called "jumping off the peace train". "There is no doubt that he was a towering figure for his people but his great mistake was not to sign on at Camp David," a senior Vatican prelate told Reuters.

"That was a great failure and a lot of problems stemmed from that," he said. "He missed his date with history."


http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200411/s1241714.htm

[Moderator]

18. cal04

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.


DU Moderator

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wuushew]

11. Depends what your definition of is, is

until you immerse yourself in the full on and liberating philosophy of relativism, making such grandiose black and white statements is pointless. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

[PAdem2]

14. Arafat/relativism

Please tell me your joking. Blowing up busloads of children as a political technique can't be rationalized by a sane person.

[wuushew]

15. Should you not be equal in your condemnation of Sharon?

Since Israel has inflicted three times the number of casualties as the Palestinians?

I really expect a more balanced viewpoint on this board. Instead I am seeing two to three or more pro-Israeli bias newbies to every Palestinian one. Very depressing.

[PAdem2]

19. Arafat/Sharon

'Scuze me, did Sharon just die? Anybody call him a great human being lately?

I'm not anti-Palestinian. Anti Arafat, yes. Arafat was by far the biggest impediment to a Palestinian state. I read an AP story not too long ago that illustrated how the Palestinian people were between a rock & a hard place. Paraphrased, a Palestinian with a small olive tree farm was approached by the intifada who wanted to use his farm as a staging ground for their home-made missiles that they were lobbing into Israel. Knowing he'd be killed if he refused, what could he do. Of course, after a few days the Israelies came in (but not before the missile team left) and leveled his trees and house. That's the general gist of the story, and one I'm sure happened frequently.

So, who really screwed him?

[Just Me]

23. Apparently, you are quite familiar with the exercise of moral relativism.

eom

[Englander]

21. You'd best steer clear of the I/P forum,then...

as the pro-IDFers down there echo the radical right in their condemnation of Palestinians.

:shrug:

[DubyaSux]

31. Not exactly true...

...the raw numbers don't reflect the situation.

According to the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, 95% of non-combatants are male. It is statistically impossible to kill randomly at a 95% male rate. It is overwhelmingly conclusive that Israel does not target civilians.

Furthermore, Israel is "credited" with kills of suicide bombers and conspirators. In other words, they get blamed for deaths they had nothing to do with.

Some people make this a better world by being born into it. Some make it a better world by leaving it. This week, Arafat made this a better world.

[foo_bar]

36. Exodus mentioned something about 95+-5% male children

It's statistically possible they're being selected by more general criteria than "combatants". "Combativeness", for instance.

[DrWeird]

12. Don't forget he got blow jobs in the Oval Office.

The BASTARD!

[CO Liberal]

6. CO Liberal Calls Jimmy Carter "A Great Man"

:kick:

This is the DU member still known as CO Liberal.

[Liberal Veteran]

7. Well there was a certain DU'er bashing Chirac yesterday....

...for saying he would attend the funeral of Arafat.

Guess that same person probably feels the same way about Carter now.

[fob]

8. Huh?

Carter "will not be attending the funeral," said Jon Moor, a Carter Center spokesman.

[Liberal Veteran]

9. I think you missed the point....

...the point was that the person I was referring to called Chirac a terrorist lover for saying he would attend the funeral and I wonder if he feels the same way about Carter for his post-mortem comments about Arafat.

Sorry you jumped to the wrong conclusion.

[fob]

13. Oh. Thanks for the explanation but you can keep the condescension,

I'm not the one who wrote the confusing post.

If you meant to tie the persons reaction to Chirac's and Carter's respective comments, why not just say that?

Geez, Peace Brother, Peace.

[Liberal Veteran]

17. Sorry...I've been in a bad mood for the last 4 years.

I expect it to continue for another 4 unfortunately.

:)

[fortyfeetunder]

35. Carter's absence is not intentional

President Carter, now in his early 80's travels very little outside of Plains. Doubt if he could make that trip even if he wanted to. But he did a wise thing and spoke of Arafat with diplomacy and sympathy.

[malaise]

16. Carter, pure class as usual

Arafat was the hero for the Palastinian people. Carter is correct.
"He was the father of the modern Palestinian nationalist movement. A powerful human symbol and forceful advocate, Palestinians united behind him in their pursuit of a homeland,"

How the world viewed him is irrelevant at this time. Indeed the current leaders of this planet should simply shut up and think about about their role in the plight of these oppressed and homeless people.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

[PAdem2]

20. Carter/Arafat

I think President Carter is simply practicing diplomacy.

As a deeply religious man, I am sure he rejects the terrorist acts of Arafat.

I think Jimmy is "lusting in his heart" for a chance for peace at long last.

[Just Me]

25. He certainly rejects the level of violence waged against innocent people

,...by those other than merely this one man. Do you reject all those who kill innocent people by whatever means they do so? Or is there some level of "moral relativism" applied such that some who are guilty of killing innocent people are excused?

[PAdem2]

27. I regret the death of all innocent people

I do not celebrate the death of the guilty ones, but know that the earth is a better place without them.

I understand that war & conflict are hellish, and that innocents will die.

I realize that this happens regularly, but there are times that it happens neccessarily.

I understand the concept of moral relativism.

I reject it as a valid, working concept, or a way to live my life. I recognize that there is good and evil and many shades of gray in between.

I shed a tear when Mother Teresa died. My gut reaction to Arafat's death was that it was about damn time, and I hope the poor Palestinian people take this opportunity for real peace.

Just my 2 cents.

[flresident]

22. "Monster" Is a More Fitting Title for Arafat

JEFF JACOBY
Arafat the monster
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist  |  November 11, 2004

YASSER ARAFAT died at age 75, lying in bed surrounded by
familiar faces. He left this world peacefully, unlike the
thousands of victims he sent to early graves.

In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a
gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were
hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president
would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster.
In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing
the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his
soul."

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of
the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent
his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow
airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias,
machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied,
cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the
vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human
beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil -- as indeed
Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize
-- but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity.

Arafat always inspired flights of nonsense from Western
journalists, and his last two weeks were no exception.

Derek Brown wrote in The Guardian that Arafat's
"undisputed courage as a guerrilla leader" was
exceeded only "by his extraordinary courage" as a
peace negotiator. But it is an odd kind of courage that
expresses itself in shooting unarmed victims -- or in signing
peace accords and then flagrantly violating their terms.

Another commentator, columnist Gwynne Dyer, asked, "So
what did Arafat do right?" The answer: He drew worldwide
attention to the Palestinian cause, "for the most part by
successful acts of terror." In other words, butchering
innocent human beings was "right," since it served
an ulterior political motive. No doubt that thought brings
daily comfort to all those who were forced to bury a child,
parent, or spouse because of Arafat's "successful"
terrorism.

Some journalists couldn't wait for Arafat's actual death to
begin weeping for him. Take the BBC's Barbara Plett, who burst
into tears on the day he was airlifted out of the West Bank.
"When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose
above his ruined compound," Plett reported from Ramallah,
"I started to cry." Normal people don't weep for
brutal murderers, but Plett made it clear that her empathy for
Arafat -- whom she praised as "a symbol of Palestinian
unity, steadfastness, and resistance" -- was heartfelt:

"I remember well when the Israelis re-conquered the West
Bank more than two years ago, how they drove their tanks and
bulldozers into Mr. Arafat's headquarters, trapping him in a
few rooms, and throwing a military curtain around Ramallah. I
remember how Palestinians admired his refusal to flee under
fire. They told me: `Our leader is sharing our pain, we are
all under the same siege.' And so was I." Such is the
state of journalism at the BBC, whose reporters do not seem to
have any trouble reporting, dry-eyed, on the plight of
Arafat's victims. (That is, when they mention them -- which
Plett's teary bon voyage to Arafat did not.)

And what about those victims? Why were they scarcely
remembered in this Arafat death watch?

How is it possible to reflect on Arafat's most enduring legacy
-- the rise of modern terrorism -- without recalling the
legions of men, women, and children whose lives he and his
followers destroyed? If Osama bin Laden were on his deathbed,
would we neglect to mention all those he murdered on 9/11?

It would take an encyclopedia to catalog all of the evil
Arafat committed. But that is no excuse for not trying to
recall at least some of it.

Perhaps his signal contribution to the practice of political
terror was the introduction of warfare against children. On
one black date in May 1974, three PLO terrorists slipped from
Lebanon into the northern Israeli town of Ma'alot. They
murdered two parents and a child whom they found at home, then
seized a local school, taking more than 100 boys and girls
hostage and threatening to kill them unless a number of
imprisoned terrorists were released. When Israeli troops
attempted a rescue, the terrorists exploded hand grenades and
opened fire on the students. By the time the horror ended, 25
people were dead; 21 of them were children.

Thirty years later, no one speaks of Ma'alot anymore. The dead
children have been forgotten. Everyone knows Arafat's name,
but who ever recalls the names of his victims?

So let us recall them: Ilana Turgeman. Rachel Aputa. Yocheved
Mazoz. Sarah Ben-Shim'on. Yona Sabag. Yafa Cohen. Shoshana
Cohen. Michal Sitrok. Malka Amrosy. Aviva Saada. Yocheved
Diyi. Yaakov Levi. Yaakov Kabla. Rina Cohen. Ilana Ne'eman.
Sarah Madar. Tamar Dahan. Sarah Soper. Lili Morad. David
Madar. Yehudit Madar. The 21 dead children of Ma'alot -- 21 of
the thousands of who died at Arafat's command.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

29. Terrorism Has Been Used For Centuries In Every War

The US bombed German cities (my father was a B-17 co-pilot) in WWII and did it often without having a specific military target. Dresden killed tens of thousands of civilians. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the firebombing of Tokyo are other examples of an effort to strike terror into the hearts of the civilians so an entire State would lose the will to fight. Whether women and children are intentionally eye-balled and sought out before the terrorist act or if it's done from the sky at night in an air strike on an apartment building in which dozens of children live, what's the difference? The Shock And Awe campaign in the early part of the Iraq war was an attempt at terrorism without killing, but with the promise that mass death could follow if the civilians didn't give up. Julius Caesar used terrorism as a weapon by eliminating entire tribes of Gauls who wouldn't surrender to his army so that his merciless reputation would spread ahead of his arrival. Personally, I think that there's no difference between a terrorist bombing by Hamas and the indiscriminate strafing of an apartment building by the Israeli military. It's all ugly and monstrous. War is ugly. However, I'm also convinced that if all Palestinians suddenly became peaceful, that Israel and the Settlers in particular would no longer find the incentive to negotiate at all. I'm amazed in fact that anyone would seriously think that Israel would be willing to give even a square foot of settlement or entertain the idea of a separate Palestinian State if there suddenly there were only peaceful and non-violent Palestinians facing them.

[flresident]

30. Difference Between Terrorisim and What the US Does

You have some good points, but let's be clear about one thing: Unlike the US and Israel, terrorists kill indiscriminately - women, children, it doesn't matter - in fact, Arafat and other terrorists try to inflict as much death on innocents as possible. Yes, some (to a FAR smaller degree) civilians die as a result of US and Israeli attacks, but as a regretable consequence of, not purpose, of war.

[bush_is_wacko]

24. Yasser Arafat/Jimmy Carter

While I personally believe arafat was more terrrorist than hero, I wihs our current President would rely on Jimmy Carter's experience in the middle east peace process. Jimmy Carter may not have been a great domestic President, but his ability to unite is second to none!

[nolabels]

26. The only reason he is any of what you think he is just that

Now what will his poor little adversaries do. He died of somewhat of old age. If he lived by the sword why did he die of old age mostly?

Stole his country and his land, humiliated, tortured, starved, raped and pillaged his people. Razed the place he was living to a pile of rubble and yet the man does his best to pass away in dignity.

Even in this him being gone will do more for his cause than if he was living. He is a symbol alright, but that symbol is the one that you put in your mind yourself

[Redleg]

28. Rethugs spin will be "Carter thinks Arafat better Leader than Bush."

EOM

[Ctrl_Alt_Del]

32. Shit....

I think Arafat, in life and in death, was and is a better leader than Bush.

The body counts speak for themselves.

[Redleg]

34. Harsh!

I hesitate to use the terms "leader" and "Bush" in the same paragraph.

[ibegurpard]

33. That'll probably buy him some time in Gitmo.

eom

[Boosterman]

37. He had 4.2 to 6.5 billion dollars

That says it all to me.

[Carolab]

38. I love Jimmy too but

why was it he wouldn't monitor our election?