Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

My response: In his younger days, Arafat did regrettably take part in several massacres of Jews in Palestine prior to the establishment of the state of Israel. He also founded the terrorist organization Fatah in 1959 which rejected Israel's right of existence, espousing terrorism to compel Israel to permit the return of the Palestinian refugees. Moreover, Arafat chaired the PLO for thirty-five years, which perpetrated more than sixty terrorist crimes in various countries until 1991. So he should certainly have spent a number of years in prison in Egypt or Jordan for murdering innocent people in acts of terrorism. But later in life, Arafat courageously renounced terrorism and formally recognized Israel's right to exist in 1993. From then on, his PLO police faithfully worked to prevent terrorist attacks and to arrest, prosecute and jail terrorists without disrupting the lives of the Palestinian people.  

Mr. Hannity fails to give Arafat credit for this unusual conversion which defied the unchanging behavior of so many Palestinian terrorists. He also fails to note that Arafat had at least been only a secular terrorist, not an uncompromising "Islamic" extremist; his general separation of religion from politics helped to counterbalance the religious extremism that has plagued the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. While he may have been "the oldest terrorist", Arafat was also the most prominently and sincerely converted terrorist. Unfortunately, the government-controlled American and Israeli media vilified and slandered him to his death, and even after his death. They blamed him for every terrorist act committed against Israel by others, despite the fact that he did everything possible to stop terrorism without crushing his people's liberty. Far from being an "evil actor", Arafat was an untiring champion of Palestinian freedom and human rights, which explains his popularity among the Palestinian community. Pope John Paul II granted him no fewer than twelve visits, during which he praised Arafat's commitment to a just and peaceful resolution of the conflict.

While Yasser Arafat continued to display certain shortcomings, notably a tolerance of corruption within the Palestinian Authority, he nevertheless refused to give up the quest for his people's right of return and their right to a free and independent state. Thus he should be regarded like South Africa's Nelson Mandela as a terrorist cum freedom fighter and as a criminal cum national hero.