Demise of a terrorist

Yasser Arafat, according to reports, continues to linger in this world. Assuming the reports are true and he's not actually stone cold dead, I am willing to bet that his brain is without activity and that his body is being kept alive solely through artificial means.

Some say that he should have been killed years ago and wonder why Israel didn't do exactly that. I've wondered that myself. The likeliest reason I can think of is that they didn't want him to be declared a martyr, as he surely would have had he died at the hands of the Israeli military, and have his death used as the inspiration for a new wave of violence in the streets and suicide bomb attacks.

This, then, is the most fitting death for a man like Arafat. He does not give his life in holy combat against the Zionist foe. Instead he lingers and then slowly fades away, his frail body a mere shell of what it once was. The vultures, including his wife, gather to pick over the corpse for any scraps of money and power they can scavenge. He passes from this world quietly and ignominiously, unlike all those he sent to their violent deaths. Israel, and all those who are committed to the fight against terrorism, could ask for no better way for the soul of this mass murderer to depart this world.

And how fitting also that he spends his final days in France so far from the Palestine of his dreams. He is venerated by many French, which should tell you all you need to know about them. (Yes, many French don't share in that view, just as many French don't hate the US and support our actions in Iraq. Too bad they're not the ones in control of the government.) Just as fitting will be his final resting place should he be laid to rest in the family plot in Gaza. It is literally a dump, filled with refuse and suffused with the stench of rotting fruit and donkey manure.

In the end, by eschewing the violent death that so many of his people experienced, he shows himself for the complete hypocrite and utter coward that he was. My fervent hope is that once he has gone to the eternal reward that is his due (and I'm sure it's not hard to guess what I think that will be) and is finally out of the way some real progress can be made in finally ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, one way or another.