Hussein Ibish: Arafatuous
Hussein Ibish is a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine.
In November 2004, a sad but very familiar scene played itself out: A sick, 75-year-old man who had been living in squalor for several years after an extremely difficult life -- including a near-death experience in the Libyan desert -- finally passed away. Doctors at the Percy hospital in France determined he died of natural causes: a stroke caused by an unidentified infection. As is so often the case, human life ends not with a bang, but with a whimper.
But, of course, this wasn't just any ailing and frail 75-year-old man. It was Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, president of the Palestinian Authority, and national symbol of the Palestinian cause. This was the man who had overseen the revival of the Palestinian political and national identity, and who held a certain iconic status even for his most bitter Palestinian critics.
From the outset, there was a refusal to believe that such a "great man" could have died a squalid, mundane death. For many, his ending had to be heroic and romantic. He must have been assassinated. Anything less wouldn't do justice to his mythological, larger-than-life status. As early as November 2004, Palestinian journalist Maher Ibrahim wrote in the Dubai-based newspaper Al-Bayan, "Israeli Radiation Poisoning Killed President Yasser Arafat." A Palestinian grocer, Terry Atta, reflected public sentiment that has been widespread since Arafat's death when he recently told Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper, "We all knew it was poisoning."...