Arab Press Reacts to Arafat´s Death
19:50 Nov 14, '04 / 1 Kislev 5765
Most of the Arab press, as might be expected, is filled with editorials and official statements praising deceased PLO leader Yasser Arafat. The exception is Kuwait, the one Arab state that did not send a representative to Arafat's funeral ceremony in Cairo (see "Kuwaiti Minister Forced to Resign for Praising Arafat" for more on the Kuwaiti reaction).
Syrian media last week quoted Syrian Information Minister Mehdi Dakhlallah as saying, "The Palestinian people and the Arab nation lost a great national leader who left his fingerprints on the Middle East region." He praised "the Palestinian people," expressing the Syrian government's "hope that this crisis will further boost Palestinian national unity."
The Syrian News Agency, SANA, reported that Syria would observe three days of national mourning for Arafat with flags at half mast on government buildings and Syrian embassies abroad.
A November 12th editorial in the Saudi Arabian newspaper Arab News praised Yasser Arafat for his "revolutionary politics, condemned by many as terrorism,[which] achieved what the Arab armies had failed to do: Forcing the world, and eventually Israel itself, to acknowledge the existence of a Palestinian nation. ...The recognition restored part of the dignity that the Palestinians had lost since the nakba (catastrophe) of 1948."
While saying that Arafat ended his life "in tragic failure," the editorial hedged a bit, adding, "It is too early for us to judge a man of such a stature as Arafat. That task must be left to history. The best that the people of Palestine and their friends can do is to acknowledge Arafat’s achievement but also recognize his shortcomings." He was, the Arab News editors wrote, "A towering giant of a tree..."
The Egyptian newspaper Al-Gomhuriya carried several days of editorial praise for the deceased terrorist leader. Thursday's editorial said that Yasser Arafat should be "immortalized in the record of [those] who led revolutions for the sake of achieving freedom, independence as well as bringing the occupation to an end.
"In fact, the Palestinian factions, regardless of their affiliations, have to abide by the principles that Arafat struggled for.... Undoubtedly, the Palestinian unity has to resist all Israeli plots and maneuvers that aim at subjugating the Palestinian people."
Saturday's Al-Gomhuriya editorial declared, "Yasser Arafat achieved his most glorious triumph while being inside the coffin wrapped with the Palestinian flag in his last trip from Paris, where Europe supported the Palestinians, to Cairo that offered dear sacrifices for the sake of the Palestinian cause.
"Arafat gained the sympathy and backing of the entire world when he was heartily surrounded by thousands of his people. He deeply impressed the globe when he paved the way for the independent Palestinian state with his blood and gave his life as a sacrifice for his homeland."
Point out the lies in the list I posted, Moishe.
