Yasser Arafat
- Share via
How interesting that the same day your paper carried Fawaz Turki’s bitter diatribe against Yasser Arafat (“Arafat Has Failed His People,” Commentary, May 22), you carried a news story concerning the impact of another Israeli housing plan that will certainly affect the peace process, which is now barely surviving on life support. I must disagree with Turki. Arafat has not failed his people. The Palestinians have had the odds stacked against them from the very inception of the peace process. Arafat has had to make do with whatever crumbs Israel and its ally--the United States and its pro-Zionist diplomats--let him have. Let us not forget that the Palestinian Authority exists only because Israel lets it exist.
We see the true aim and direction of Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration: settlements and expansion at all costs and damn the peace process. It seems the violation of Palestinian human rights by Israeli security forces will continue to go unchecked, as will Israel’s ignoring of the Oslo accords and U.N. resolutions regarding rules of occupation.
JOHN V. FLORES
Alhambra
* Bravo for Turki, a Palestinian journalist with enough courage to call the Palestinian Authority what it truly is--a brutally sadistic regime that has yoked the Palestinians to a cycle of violence and repression. Arafat’s insistent drive for power and control over his people reminds me of the wasp who persuaded the frog to carry him over the river. The frog agreed, on the condition that he not be stung. In the middle of the stream the wasp stings the frog and both begin to drown. In his last breath the frog asks the wasp why he did it. The wasp simply shrugs and says, “It’s my nature.”
Was it ever really imaginable that a man who had devoted his life to the murder of innocents could revert to the hallowed role of statesman and father of his country? The Palestinian people, the Nobel committee and the world have been fooled. The name Arafat will go down in world and Palestinian history not as that of a great liberator but rather that of a tyrant and murderer.
AVI DAVIS
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
John Orr was a renowned fire investigator who was also a prolific arsonist, and whose thinly veiled novel helped to convict him. In this episode we hear from the fire captain who first suspected him—and from Orr himself.
Madison McGhee is joined by legendary Dateline host Josh Mankiewicz and esteemed L.A. Times Reporter Richard Winton as the three of them dive into all-things Menendez Brothers, the good, the bad, and the still unknown.
NPR climate editor Sadie Babits talks about why the media has long overlooked the climate crisis, and how that’s starting to change.
