	Generational Dynamics
	Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 14-Nov-04
NY Post: "Arafat Dead - And he won't be missed."

Web Log - November, 2004

NY Post: "Arafat Dead - And he won't be missed."

I look at Arafat's life very, very differently.

Was he a terrorist? Yes. Was he a hero to the Palestinian people? Yes - just ask them.

<i>New York Post</i> front page, 11-Nov-2004

New York Post front page, 11-Nov-2004

The front page of the 11-Nov Post captures a sentiment that has been repeatedly stated by Western analysts and politicians. One pundit even called Arafat "a truly evil man." These people believe that Arafat, and only Arafat, stood in the way of Mideast peace.

That's obviously what President Bush believes. In a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the President said that with Arafat out of the way, his goal is to establish a peaceful, democratic Palestinian state alongside Israel before he leaves office in 2009.

All this is based on the silly assumption that the Palestinian demand that Jerusalem return to Palestinian control and that the Palestinian people have a "right of return" to lands lost in the 1948 Arab/Jewish war came from Arafat, rather than from the people he led.

Both Generational Dynamics and history tell us that those kinds of demands are buried deep in the DNA of the people. The pattern is always the same after a genocidal crisis war like the Arab/Jewish war of the late 1940s: There are numerous atrocities and genocidal rage on both sides, along with a desire on each side to exterminate the other side. Such a war is resolved only with painful compromises, in order to end the atrocities. When the generation of people who lived through the atrocities disappear (retire or die), all at once, then the younger generations left behind retain the old demands, and the painful compromises unravel.

In fact, many commentators are expressing a kind of perverse appreciation of Arafat, worrying that Arafat's departure will cause a civil war among the Palestinians.

As well they might. Arafat was hardly a high-flying playboy. He lived in a filthy uncomfortable bunker in Ramallah when he could have had a luxury suite in Paris. He was a driven desperate man, obsessed with doing anything, willing to sacrifice his own comfort and livelihood, if it meant finding a way to prevent a new genocidal war between the Arabs and Jews.

Only a "terrorist" who had actually survived the atrocities of the 1940s Arab/Jewish war would be obsessed enough to make these sacrifices, because he considers his own life less important than the lives of his fellow Palestinians, and yes, even the Jews in Israel.

Yasser Arafat in 2000

Yasser Arafat in 2000

Yes, he was a brutal, vicious terrorist. Yes he was a liar and maybe even a crook. Yes, he approved suicide bombings that killed Jewish children.

But for a man in his position, approving suicide bombings was the lesser of two evils. The greater evil was unleashing a new genocidal war, one that would kill many more Jewish and Arab children than suicide bombings do.

Arafat surely saw what's coming, and that's why he lived his tortured life in his Ramallah bunker.

He leaves behind Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was about the same age (born in 1928) as Arafat (1929). Sharon is also a deeply desperate man, since he's also a survivor of the 1940s Arab/Jewish war. He orders the killing of Hamas leaders, and he builds a 12 foot high barrier around Israel, infuriating the Palestinians and the Europeans, once again because it's the lesser of two evils.

Mideast, showing Israel/Palestine, Muslim countries, and Orthodox Christian countries

Mideast, showing Israel/Palestine, Muslim countries, and Orthodox Christian countries

Generational Dynamics predicts that there'll be a new Arab/Israeli crisis war, with almost 100% probability, in the next few years. When it occurs, Jews and Palestinians will once again try to exterminate each other completely, but since there are so many more Muslims in the region, the continued existence of Israel is in question. No one who looks at the adjoining map can realistically doubt that conclusion.

The Palestinians will mourn Yasser Arafat and miss him. But despite what the New York Post says, a lot of other people are going to miss Yasser Arafat as well, and I suspect that the man who will miss him most of all will be Ariel Sharon. (14-Nov-04) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 14-Nov-04 NY Post: "Arafat Dead - And he won't be missed."

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 14-Nov-04
NY Post: "Arafat Dead - And he won't be missed."