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A True Founder Passes

by John F. Tamburo, Editor in Chief, Publisher
Originally Posted: 11/11/2004

Yasser Arafat is dead.  With the death of Arafat, a true founder has passed.  Arafat was the founder of terrorism.  Arafat perfected the use of plane hijackings, cruise ship hijackings, hostage threats, suicide bombers, and of course that wonderful whopper, terrorist training kindergartens.  It is no understatement to say that, were it not for the "innovations" of Arafat, September 11 would not have happened.  Now, as the French load his corpse onto a plane with full state-funeral honors, the equivalent of the according Hitler a state funeral in 1945, the world lionizes this master of terror as if he were a dove of peace.

"Arafat, the darling of civil liberties advocates like Mao, Brezhnev and Nasser, Arafat, when speaking Arabic, never, not for one second, turned from his roots...Arafat was a consistent terrorist from the time he took the helm of PLO in 1969 to his dying day."

As such, it should come as no surprise that he won a Nobel Peace Prize from a ultra-left-wing, virulently Anti-Semitic prize committee.  History will judge him "harshly," as the Prime Minister of Australia said today.  How true.  Arafat, the darling of civil liberties advocates like Mao, Brezhnev and Nasser, Arafat, when speaking Arabic, never, not for one second, turned from his roots.  This is unusual for any totalitarian left-winger, as John Kerry has recently demonstrated.  Arafat was a consistent terrorist from the time he took the helm of PLO in 1969 to his dying day. 

The consummate anti-Semite, Arafat spurned Ehud Barak’s 2000 offer that would have meant a nation of Palestine on the spot.  That simply proved what we conservatives knew all along:  Arafat wanted every Jewish person on Earth dead.  He shares that with other people in the same left-wing historical category, Hitler and Stalin.  Arafat did a good job of schmoozing the elite leftists of the world; he played them like violins and many of these leftists actually believe that Arafat had morphed into a good guy. 

"Now that the father of Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror groups has died, Arafat’s philosophical children split into two camps."

Now that the father of Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror groups has died, Arafat’s philosophical children split into two camps.  The first camp is the "holy cow, W is out to get me" dirty-diaper crowd.  Qadaffi is among these survivalists who will stop being terrorists for fear of the business end of the United States Armed Forces.  Then there are the wackos, the Mullah Omars, The Osamas, the Al-Zarqawis.  These are the fight-to-the-death, our-way-or-nothing terrorists.  Right now, these wackos are more leaderless than the Libya types.  Arafat played the fork-tongued classic Harry Twoface between the world and the wackos.  With Arafat gone, the wackos will feel unchained.

There are four nations on Earth with both the massive power and the spine to deal with this:  The United States, The United Kingdom, Australia and Israel.  There are the Eastern European nations who will help as well, and they have all of the spirit one could hope for, but they also help deal with terrorists in what was Yugoslavia, and that is just as important as wiping out Al-Qaeda.  Those who have seen terror for what it is realize that Arafat’s passing is a challenge and an opportunity.  The challenge is in stamping out terrorism, once and for all.  The opportunity is in the possible elevation of a non-terrorist to the leadership of the Palestinians.

So the founder of modern terrorism is in a wooden box.  Let’s keep our guard up and watch.