Arafat's dead.
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/3984841.stm

Well, I gotta say, fuck. He fought a good fight, and now he's dead. The guy was a huge fucking obstacle in some ways, and probably one of the best things to happen to the palestinians on the other. Not that there's many good things that have happened to the palestinians since the Israelis made off with their land.

Anyway, hopefully we'll see some more moderate people take over (Come on, someone boot Sharon), and maybe we'll survive Arafat in seeing some peace in that region.

Edit: Better use Israelis instead of Jews, since it's the Israelis who fucked up, not the Jewish people. Kinda the same thing, except without the anti-semetic shit.

http://cagle.slate.msn.com/working/041108/huffaker.gif sucks for ms. arafat.

now what happens?

Probably Palestine as a whole spends several days in mourning, Israel increases their military force on the wall ten fold, and lots of people die.

Tributes.
 

Thats whats going to happen now , well half the world will say good riddance, the other half will mourn a great man.
Maybe there will be some progress now?

Not so long as Heman continues to disrupt the region.
http://andrewlb.com/temp/heman.jpg

Arafat wanted to become the first primeminister of the "future" "Palestinian state". For that the world suffered as he held onto power not giving it more competent leaders. The Palestinians have suffered for the ego for this one man just because he wanted to go into the history books as the "first primeminister" of the "palastine state". Now that his death has be comfirmed there can be another step foward in History as another leader can step up and either continue his evil ways or advance the talks.

The middle east is a great mess already and its quite hard to comment on it without stepping on feet or getting roasted alive so to try not to be over cooked I say that its going to be interesting in the up comming months to come. Whether it be for better or worse.

Need to also add (1) the infighting among the party's remaining leaders to officially take over his seat and role and (2) the arguing between his wife and the government to find and keep the money under Arafat's control for the government. There are supposed to be millions that were donated by governments and such hidden away and possibly under different names as account owners, but no one is really sure apparently. Something should be left; his wife supposedly got $100,000 a month for expenses according to an article in yesterday's newspapers.

Palestine's economy is already in the toilet from blocks placed to stop suicide bombers and retaliations from attacks. They certainly don't need this kind of nonsense, IMHO. Arafat should have started the succession plans a lot sooner. :(

Edit - Have to agree with HK Anime Seeker's statement, though. It'll be "interesting" to see how things go over the next few months to a year.

History has shown that he's not interested in peace.

if the US and or Israel decide to put a "puppet" (like Iraq) in charge after Arafat's death.....they would then say that anyone who opposes this action would be "against freedom" for the Palestinian people and thus the killings of Palestinians would continue.

Middle-east is a great mess.

I guess the "Weekend at Bernie's" routine is over.... someone must have convinced the Swiss bankers that this corpse nodding his head means the billions of dollars should be transferred to someone.

It's too bad Arafat was unwilling or unable to control the radical elements of the Palestinians who ruined the Oslo agreements. Now the Israelis and Palentinians hate each other deeply... the only road to peace now is all-out warfare and the complete subjugation/extermination of one of the sides.

-k

curious

You seem to think that the death of Arafat means that the warfare will get worse.

Well, I'm hopefull that with Arafat dead someone else will take over negotiations with Israel that is either more willing or better able to bring a cease-fire. This could be the beginning of peace, not its end.

Actually if Israel had more people like Yzhak(sp?) Rabin who actually encourage peace talk but was shot by his own radical fucking people, then yes there will be a peace talk. Of course, that goes to the Palestinians as well, to stop all the suicide bombing and such, but then again, they did those things because of the Israelis, so who's on the card?

Oh boy... this is going to be interesting in a few months...

If Sharon doesn't let Arafat be buried in Jerulselem then there's not going to be peace talks any time soon. (I think this conflict is over, someone correct me)

Who woulda known that Arafat won a noble Peace Prize....? I certainly didn't...

I personally feel that the Palastinians do deserve a place to live, but right now it doesn't look like it's happening.

Can we blame the british for making that treaty? T.E. Lawrance? Heck that guy probably could have united the Arabs and they'll have a nice Arab state.

Yeah, Kissinger and Teddy Bear won them too.
.....oy.

hurray another terrorist dead =D
now for the rest...

Honestly, Arafat was never really anything more than a figurehead that could coax people into violent action. He was never directly involved in anything, and his entire purpose for being involved in the conflict was to make money. I believe that he was never directly concerned with the goals of the muslims, but saw it as an excellent way to make money. The israelis were more than happy to give him a little exposure, because it gave them ALOT of power to expand and solidify their military. Israel is now the de facto power in the middle-east thanks to Arafat, but without him there probably won't be a conflict. Right now, its time for the moderate muslims to take over what arafat is doing, because they smell alot of money that can be made from the situation. Their goal is a little more intellegent, attempting to turn the muslim states into an economic asset that could cripple israel. If something like that happens, then we could very well see a muslim state based solely on the financial influence the moderate muslims would have on israel.

Just an idle pondering, though... don't take it as a serious analysis.

Actually you got a few of your facts wrong

Arafat has been figthing the Israeli's since the sixtees. In short : after Israel won their independence war the Israeli's drove most of the Palestinians out of current day Israel, these refugees (which included Arafat) are up to this day (50 years later !!! ) still living in the refugee camps in the currents palestinians territories, in Jordan and In Lebanon.

Arafat fled to Egypt and joined the PLO. The PLO was an organisation that wanted to fight back and retake the Palestine lost land and homes which were taken by the Israeli military (Keep in mind that there weren't alot of jewes living in Israel before 1900, the immigration only started during the british rule and after WWII).

Because the PLO was still weak at that time, all they did was attack small installations and stuff, however Arafat was able to get a group of trained fighters together and create a small army in Jordan. Israel then invaded Jordan to crush this little army at it's border, It succeeded but in the Palestine and Arab world this battle was seen as a great succes since it was the first time someone actually was able to stand up against the Israeli Army.

As a consequence Arafat gained alot of popularity and thousands of people joined the PLO and their cause. I believe Arafat became leader of the PLO somewhere in this period (can't remember exactly).

What happens next is : This army keeps growing and growing and eventually we have a rather well equipped and trained army living in Jordan under PLO rule, keep in mind that this is an army the PLO tries to build up to fight Israel, these are NOT suicide bombers and stuff !!! However this huge army disstabilises Jordan and the king of Jordan (fearing he will be overthrown) attacks it. The PLO takes a heavy blow and flees to Lebanon.

Here Arafat rebuilds his army and starts attacking Israel from South lebanon, launching missiles and performing small raids and military operations against Israel, however he is no match for the Israeli army.

In the eighties , Israel invades Lebanon and besieges Beiroet in an effort to destroy the PLO, Arafat barely survives and flees to Lybia. Expelled from the region he seeks to free, he then travels the world to make his cause known. He won't return untill the first intifada starts.


Not entirely correct, the palestine territories have extremely poor living accomodations, along with the colonies being build into palestine territory this resulted into 1987 to the First Intifada, this were students and young people who couldn't take the situation any more and started a revolt against Israeli soldiers by throwing stones. At this time Arafat (still in Lybia) seizes the opportunity to become the spokesman for the Palestinians in negotiations with the Isreali.

Eventualy this will lead to the Oslo peace agreements in which
1. Arafat denounces terrorism
2. Arafat recognises the state Israel
3. a Palestinian State is founded

However, when the Israeli prime minister Rabin is murdered, Sharon comes to power, he has a completely different view on the situation and starts building colonies and such into palestine terrotory again (amonst other things), the result is the second Intifada, which is again started by students , not Arafat, with suicide bombers and all which still is in place today.


The situation in israel is very complex and both parties are guilty of many crimes, both Arafat and Israel. The only way to get out of the conflict is to lay down the weapons, but suicide bombers won't stop untill Israel stops using tanks and bulldozers to attack palestines. And the bulldozers and co won't stop until the bombs stop.

So someone has to stop first, but this can only happen through negotiations, Sharon however doesn't want to talk to the palestinians, hence the spiral of violence.

I hope that Arafat's death will lead to a new peace negotiation between israel and Palestine but with Sharon in power and Bush not really the peace making type I think we are gonna see alot more violence in the coming years. :sad:

Edit : PS Keep in mind this is what I remember, it may have a few errors left and right, I was too lazy to look things up

Excellent post. I should have at least read a wikipedia article on the situation, but that clarifies a great many things. The politics surrounding israel are extremely complex, and the balance of power there is one of the most intricate in the world. I wish there was a simple way to dissect this, but after reading a bit more about it, I don't think that anyone will be able to reliably pick the outcome of Arafats death.

uhm...Isreal never fought an independence war o_O
what is now israel was a colony of Britain i believe, it was granted to them with the UN's aproval after the 2nd WW... They simply expanded their territory during the wars they fought with Egypt and their surrounding countries.

Israel as powerfull weapons, like in the US.

On the whole Arafat's passing is a positive development. He was a favorite excuse for Likud and Bush administrations to put off the dismantling of Israeli apartheid. Now that excuse is gone.

I wish Arafat had stayed a civil engineer, and had never contributed to the destruction of Lebanon for Palestine's sake, and the stigmatization of Palestinians and Arabs as terrorists in the minds of millions with only a very superficial grasp of modern mideastern history.

Here's hoping that Palestinians can raise up a true statesman and reformer now that Arafat is out of the way. Anticipation of some sort of violent power-struggle in his wake is curious to me- I think that speaks more to the distorted image of Palestinian society in the West, than it does to the realities of life under occupation and exile at the hands of Israel, and the realities of the legitimate Palestinian struggle for the most basic of civil rights. Palestinians have no chance at reclaiming their dignity until they overcome negative stereotypes in the USA, from whence Israeli apartheid is propped up. New leadership is an opportunity for some new clarity.

Not entirely correct.

What happened at the time is

1. Between 1900 and 1945 alot of jewish immigrants moved to Israel, at that time a colony assigned to Britain raising the jewish population from about 10 % to some 40 %. This immigration rush speeded up alot due to the Nazi Holocaust.
2. This lead to serious tensions between the Arab and the Jewish population which lead to serious fighting in which the British often intervened to break up the fighting militia's
3. In 1947 the UN devides the territory into an equal Palestine and Jewish half (the so-called UN Partition Plan). This plan was instantly rejected by the Palestines and this lead to the start of a guerilla war between the two.
4. In 1948 , on the same day the British abandon the colony, the Jewish claim independence, the US instatly recognises this.
5. In the days after the independence declaration (which was not recognised by the Palestines ) Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and a few other Arab countries invade the former colony in an attempt to eradicate the Jews.
6. Even though they are far stronger, the Arab nations lose the war, a war that'll last almost a year.
7. After this war (and clearly it is an Independence war ! ) Israel occupied alot more terrain that it was assigned by the UN, and alot of the Arab population was driven out of Israel, and never allowed to return (these are the people currently still living in the Gaza strip/West Bank refugee camps).

Alot more wars would follow after this one however, but only years and years later, wars in which Israel would conquer the gaza strip, the sinai desert (later given back to Egypt) the west bank, south lebanon (occupied to prevent missile attacks by terrorist groups, later unilaterally abandoned), etc ...


So as you can see, there was an independence war, since upon declaring independence they got invaded by almost every Arab nation around them... It was not an independence war against their former coloniser (like the US - Britain Independence war)

Humans, when will we learn to just get along with each other. But as I see it, it's the Iraelis that are in the wrong. How are you going to leave an area for 2 thousand year then come back and claim its yours? That's like the American Indians demanding there land back in 2 thousand years. I just don't understand how we support one type of Apartheid and condemns another *sigh, *shrug :confused:

How are you gonna leave and then come back and claim it as yours? Because the Brits and the United Nations gave it to you, and because Europe sure as hell didn't what you (and by "you", i mean JEWS)

Jews have always been considered 2nd-class citizens in europe, and europeans were also always sorta jealous of the wealth that many jews amassed over the years. When the Nazis decided to do something about it after rampaging across the continent, many of the newly counquered nations were all too happy to hand them over. Heck, even after the war, there were thousands upon thousands of jewish refugees that were confined to refugee camps because NO EUROPEAN NATION WANTED THEM BACK. So now you have israel.

And as far as arafat goes, GOOD. That's one less terrorist. I imagine 'ol Arafat is probably feeling mighty toasty right about now where he's at.

You don't know a shit about Europe, right?
Europe has never been jealous at the jews, why would we be?
Seriously, jews have always been considered 2nd-class citizens? Get your info right.
Jews is by no means considered 2nd-class citizens. Where you live people may consider people 2nd-class citizens depending on race, but not in Europe.
Sure there are people that consider people to be worth more depending on race, but they are a minority.

That the nazis killed loads of jews say something about the nazis, but do not think all people in Europe are like the nazis!
And that statement that no country wanted them back is wrong, Sweden for exampel took care of some of the victims of the war.

Arafat is just as much terrorist as the U.S, actually less, as the U.S invades countrys without any good reason, while Arafat and PLO had (and has) a good reason.

Plz look at a map and realise, Europe is not one country. And get your history right and realise how many people Israel has made homeless.
War is not black and white as you seem to think.

BTW: Sharon is the terrorist, not Arafat.

You forgot to mention that during WWII even America refused to take in the jews that were on the run. They did at first but after a while they stopped it. In fact most nations did so.
Besides, it is true that there was alot of anti-jew feeling between WWI and WWII but that was 50 years ago, so don't charge us with crimes we have nothing to do with. Besides, America isn't all that holy either, I don't think the black population in the US is being treated as equal citizens are they?

A reason why no european country wanted them back after the war is the fact that they weren't even able to provide food and shelter for their own population, so most nations weren't to happy to take in another few hungry mouths when they couldn't even fill the ones present.


About the nazi anti-jew feelings : consider the situation in Germany after WWI. At the end of WWI Germany was forced to pay insane amounts to the victors, the treaty which was forced onto them was based completely on revenge (the french president at the time is often blamed for being the one who wanted to take personal revenge on the germans.

Not only did Germany loose alot of it's territory, it has to pay all the WWI damage, incomes from certain industry and territories went to france, etc....
This took away all options to rebuild germany itself, which lead to a Germany and German population which was very poor. Now at the same time there are the jews , who have a keen eye for business, they are able to make good profits and are at that time rather wealthy.

Then we have the uprising of the nazi's, they were at first a socialist party who wanted to improve the conditions for the millions of poor laborors. Basically the nazi's ideologies were twofold
1. Nationalism : seeing as many countries had stolen land and money from them after WWI and the heavy cost to repay the damage, alot of germans hated anything non--german
2. Laborers first : many of these were poor, so the jews (a rich part of society) became an easy target

Combine these two with an excellent crowd manager (being Hitler) and it isn't all that weird that they became extremely popular. Combine that with the fact that the nazi's rule provided everyone with work, food and even entertainment.

However somewhere along the line the nazi's lost it and became more extreme, they wanted to get rid of the heavy debts and reclaim their lost lands. These feeling would escalate resulting in 1. a hostile take-over of the government 2. build-up to war to retake lost assets from WWI and 3. Blame the jews for everything, eventualy leading to the Holocaust.

I don't agree with our war in Iraq or anything, but shut up. You can't honestly call a nation terrorist. There are too many good people here.

Well, that really depends on the area. Where I live, basically everyone is equal; the equality the US claims to sport.

There's a perfectly good reason that Bush invaded Iraq. Just stop listening to Michael Moore.

Let's take a look from Bush's point of view. He knows that Iraq has been kicking out the UN inspectors since 1990 or so. He has no way to check if Saddamn had WMD or not. Naturally he became suspicious of Saddamn and decided to take the initiative.

He didn't know if there was WMDs or not, what if there were? Bush is not just doing this for oil, he felt it was crucial to U.S. safety. He didn't want to wait for answers, so instead he just made them. People act on what they believe, not what is nessarily true. By your logic, those damn Mongols musta been some insane terrorists. Or the Japanese invading Manchuria for "living space" oh oh oh how about Alexander the Great and his invasions to "Explore the World" (That and he really doesn't like the persians...)

I hope you people do realize all throughout 4000 years of written/recorded history the Jews have been persecuted and killed by nearly everyone on the planet. Nobody likes the Jews, they killed Jesus, who was strangely also a Jew. Think about it.

1. Egyptians inslave them
2. Romans thought they were terrorists
3. Persians didn't like them
4. Turks killed them
5. Arabs and Saladin made them wear a yellow badge (True, not only hitler did that)
6. Crusades killed off another couple thousands
7. The English kill off some Jews during the crusades
8. People blamed the Jews for the Black Death
9. The Pope kills off more Jews claiming they're the one's that killed Jesus
10. Holocaust
11. Stalin and his Iron Curtain erases some Jews from existance (Prague Trials)
12. Alfred Dreyfus in France
13. Saddamn
14. Arafat
15. Heck even the USA doesn't like the Jews, those bastards are running the Media here. Or so people claim, they make it seem the Jews are always the good guys and everyone else is the bad ones.

I gotta agree on something though, Sharon is the Terrorist. Arafat is just the nationalist.

Hmmm, I have heard several statistics stating that anti-semitism is rising in europe. I know you can't put too much stock in statistics, but I have also had a chance to talk middle east politics with several europeans, and they were very anti Jewish and anti Israel. Of course one group can't speak for all, but the general feeling I got is: a lot of Europeans blame the Jews (and Bush) for the "rise" in terrorism. Lets not forget that some European countries have a very large number of Arab citizens, although I am not sure if that affects European's feelings on the matter.

Honestly, the Israelis are in a very tough situation. They are surrounded by nations that would love to see them "pushed into the sea". It has become a case of "do the ends justify the means".

Also, why don't other Arab countries give the Palestinians extended aid, or even a *gasp* piece of land? If many of the neighboring countries think the Palestinians have been so severely wronged, and maybe they have been, then why not offer more support instead of hating the West and Israel?

Like I said, there's a huge history of not liking the Jews in the first place. 4000 years of hating them it's probably embedded into their genes by now. (It's just an expression, don't get your panties in a bunch claiming "I DON"T hATE TEH jeWs!"

That's just human nature. For example, if another city wants to build a nice new sewage system, but lacks the cash to do so. Thus they want to ask a loan from your city, but in order to get that loan your city needs to raise taxes.

who the hell wants their taxes to be raised for someone else's city?

Oh I just came back from teh Battle.net forums. Apparently the new way to talk shit to someone is to call them a Jew.

On the other hand, I believe the current Israeli government acts too brashly. I mean it appears they don't even attempt to fake diplomacy. I think that's a huge turn off to the international community, where its all pomp and circumstance. That leads to another reason the Europeans would be pissed at Israel and Bush; both parties telling the European's worshipped UN "screw you". Although it seems pretty obvious no one listens to the UN.

I don't know, it's hard for me take an organization seriously when some members make money by selling goods to countries their organization has sanctioned. Putting Sudan, Libya and Cuba on the human rights seats doesn't impress me much, either.

Allow me to explain the current feeling about jews and Arabs over here. It's important to understand that we don't see Jews and Israel as the same !

First, concerning the jews, in general it's not the jews that are being blamed for the mess over there but the Israeli's, (notice the difference!). We are mostly living peacefully with the jewish people in our country, and as far as I can tell, this goes more or less as well for neighbouring countries. There have been a few incidents vs jews but those are mostly isolated cases, the general population is not against jews.

When we are talking about the Israeli's however, many people aren't too positive about them, the fact that Israel often invades Palestine territories with tanks and bulldozers is seen very negatively. I must not that we do condemn the suicide bombings either. But those are often seen as a desperate and only means the Palestines have to react to Israeli agression. most europeans would agree that both Israel and Palestines have to stop the violence, but the general consensus is that Israel is the aggressor. (I know some have other visions but as far as my country goes, that's the general view)

Well as much as there is a difference between jews and israeli's, there is also a difference between the palestines (who more or less have our sympathy) and the islamic population living over here. In many countries in Europe the Islam and the moslims are currently being seen in a very negative light. If racism is on a rise (and I believe it is) then it is 99% focused on moslims not jews.

The reason for this is very simple : most moslims live in ghetto like parts of our cities, many are also unemployed, as a result more end up in crime and this combined with the international fundamental islamic terroristic groups, is starting to increase racism towards these people as they are often seen as the troublemakers in society. For Belgium for example it is a fact that many small criminals are immigrnats, but it's not because they are immigrants that they are criminals, it is due to the lack of chances to develop a decent life they have (this compared to natives), however not everyone is aware of that..;

A second thing which is causing troubles is the fact that these people have completely different values and habits than the average european, as a result this "conflict of cultures" is generating alot of tensions. Around here the general population is in favor of the idea "adapt or go back" which means we would ask them to learn the local language, adapt to our society (note this does NOT mean give up your own culture), etc or go back to the country you came from.


Indeed, but the problem with such an attitude is that the hatred towards them will not decline but increase, so this attitude may serve them well in the short term but not in the long term, this goes for the palestines as well, but it is hard to be the one who puts the weapons down first.

The Arab countries surrounding Israel have tried again and again to get rid of israel, but Israel's military is far more superior to their own, which lead to several defeats of Arabs armies in the several wars that have taken place between Arab countries and Israel.
Therefore some of them have started the path of negotiations rather than a military path (Egypt for example).

And the Arab countries do support the Palestines besides the military campaigns that were frequent in the past decades. For instance the PLO has always recieved lotsa money from Arab nations. However you should keep in mind that all these Arab countries aren't as united as they usually seem, notably Iraq has always been a problem (since up to the invasion) it was a secular state and not an islamic one.


Wow, long post, hope I didn't insult anyone ...

Y?ou cant stop the ARABS.. The reason why they hate each other is bcause they have different religion.

Well, thanks for sharing your perspective. Right now I don't have time to go over it in in detail, but I should add that the Europeans I talked to did make a distinction between "Jews" and "Israelis", though of course most Israelis are Jews.

Like I said in my second post, a majority of people think the Israeli government's methods are too heavy handed (to put it one way). As Europeans and Americans we should also remember, the Middle East culture and thinking are very different from what we are used. I would almost call it brutal.

Dont set criticism of isreals politic = antisemitism.
Thats not correct, the fact that israel happens to be a jewish staate has nothing to do with that.

There are antisemits in europe, but those are mostly skinheads, nazis and other scum like that. The reasons for their hate are not rational. They hate foreigners in general and specially jews (thats some sort of fucked up "tradition" it seems).
Of course if they would actualy talk about foreign politics (most are to stupid to read newspapers, so that wont happen too often) they would also bash on israel for that reason, but thats just unavoidable (not that they would sympathize with palestineans... they dont have much sympathy for anyone at all, just hate).

Now, if someone doesnt agree with israels politic, please dont equal them with those scumbags.

About the difference between jews and israeli's I mentioned in my post : by jews I mean people of jewish religion NOT living in Israel. And by Israeli's I meant all people living in Israel even the ones that aren't jewish. I hope this clarifies that.

Hmm Why would Iraq turn away inspectors, misleading the world into thinking they had WMD (which they don't have, I'll take that back when we find some) ? Just look to their neighbor, our allied on the War on Terrorism, Iran. Iran hates Iraq, Iran hated Saddam Hussien. Saddam seeing that Iran might have the campablity to attacking his country again mislead the world into thinking he had WMDs. IMO Saddam turn away the inspector because he didn't want the world to know that he didn't really have WMD, if the world fines out he didn't then Iran would attack. Too bad he miscalculated and didn't factor the Trigger Happpy, Bomb dropping cowboy from the whitehouse to take him out. lol I like to ask Bush one question, Who Would Jesus Bomb.

Now as for the Jews, okay so you've been persecuted for thousands of years, so now it's okay to persecute others and chase them out of their land. Hypocrisy! As with many (not all) ppl who fellows religion.

I'd like to add a few comments

1. Personally I believe that Saddam allready knew he was gonna get his ass invaded anyhow so he saw no reason to expose even more of his military programs and abilities

2. While no WMD were found there was clear evidence that if the UN Sanctions would ever be dropped, Saddam would quickly develop new WMD again. Plans to rebuild his former amry strength including the biological and chemical weapons were ready. But off course due to the UN sanctions, his options were limited and most of his arsenal was destroyed after the first Gulf War.

3. Detail perhaps but it was Saddam who invaded Iran and not the other way around. What he tried to do was capture the Irani oil fields. You should know that 80-90% of the Irani oil fields are located at the border with Iran. Saddam hoped he could seize those, hold them long enough to make sure the Irani's would run outta money, and then permanently claim them as his own, it turned out differently however.

4. About trigger happy Bob in the White House : Saddam did miscalculate seriously once before with senior president Bush. When he invaded Kuwait (due to chances in the oil price, which lead to decreased funds for him) he anticipated that the US would not intervene as they (Iraq and the US) has been more or less on friendly basis before. However, serious error on his part, he got control over too much of the oil and could thus influence the price too much, so father Bush did retaliate.

That's a good point. After the first gulf war, a decade of sanctions, and saddam killing all his competent commanders; the Iraqi military was woefully unprepared to defend the country. Even our poorly planned invasion worked, despite the iraqis succeeding in cutting our supply lines. Without the threat of chemical and biological weapons, the only thing preventing an iranian invasion of iraq was the US presence in the region, and no one wants to depend on the presence of one enemy to deter another from attacking. Americans, including myself unfortunatly, have a tendency to think that just because we have the worlds most powerful military, that every other country has to consider us a primary factor in their foriegn policies. Now it's forgiveable that I do it, as I'm just a lazy otaku posting on a forum, but when our leaders do it, it causes major problems. Of course even if Iraq had cooperated fully with the UN, bush would have found another excuse, or just said the hell with it, I don't need a reason.

Now getting to the Israeli-palastinian issue, the Israelis are not the aggressor, but whether or not peace comes is more dependent on their actions than those of the palastinians. If the israelis were to pull out from the west bank and gaza strip completely including all the settlers, now would be a good time too thanks to arafat's death, the palastinians would then have what they wanted, their own country. Now most palastinians would be happy with that and even if the extremists wanted to continue the assult, they'd lose popular support from the palastinian people. If they managed to convince the people of their rightiousness, and continued, the israelis could then turn to the UN, and say that they tried peace, but it isn't working and they need to send UN peacekeeper into palastine, or the Israelis would have to defend themselves. Of course no one would want to send peacekeepers in, so it would give israel a free hand to do what ever they want.
There are 2 potential problems with that though. It could make the arab nations surrounding israel think they've weakened from the suicide bombing, and inspire them to launch an invasion, but that isn't likely with the amount of US airpower in the region now. It could also cause a backlash among right wing factions in the israeli government, and may lead to a coup or outright civil war. Neither are very likely, but they are still of concern if Israel were to attempt such a plan.

Well that's just great, he'll just get replaced by another moron, nothing will change,just wait and see :(

I completely agree. I don't think that Arafat was a horrible guy, he did what he believed was right and a lot of people have opinions on that. I personally don't really like the guy but its hard to deny the fact he was open on some occasions for peace treaties and tried to keep order in a place where at times that can be hard. Hopefully the person to replace him will be more open to creating peace. Thats all anyone can hope for.
By the way, this is coming from a Jew.