Arafat not worthy of being remembered affectionately

Mohammed J. Herzallah’s effusive affection for Yasir Arafat in his latest op-ed (“The Day After Arafat,” 11/12/04) is testament to the absolute cult of violence that persists today in Palestinian society, even amongst moderates. It was saddening to read such ignorance to the thousands of people whose deaths Arafat personally orchestrated and funded, and to see this mass murderer painted so lovingly.

No, Yasir Arafat was not the first despot to use and praise brutal violence to boost his people’s self-perception; in recent memory, Hitler and Stalin particularly stand out as dictators who complimented promises of renewed national greatness with campaigns of utter human destruction. The difference is that while Europeans have since reassessed these despots, such reassessment seems unlikely among Palestinians. This is especially true so long as even the Harvard-educated among them continues to refer to Arafat affectionately as a “brother” with whom he was “madly in love.”

So long as Palestinians grant a moral carte blanche to any terrorist merely because his barbarism puts them in a headline, there will be no peace in the region. Indeed, terrorism has only served to put Palestinians on our security radar screens, where peace, pragmatism, and compromise would have put them on the map. Hopefully new Palestinian leadership will accomplish the latter.

ERIC R. TRAGER ’05

Nov. 12, 2004