Arafat's One Year Anniversary

So today is the one year anniversary of Yasir Arafat's death.

My mother is one of those who says, "If you have nothing nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all."

Obviously, Mom isn't a blogger.

The Jerusalem Post has a piece entitled "Palestinian Affairs: Of faded memory?"

Part of the article, you'll be glad to know, actually backs up that headline:

Asked if she was planning to attend the memorial service in the Mukata, Rasha Shaheen, a university student from Ramallah, replied: "We want to look forward, not backward. We loved Arafat as a symbol, but more and more people are beginning to realize that this is a man who led us from one disaster to another over the past 40 years."

That sounds kind of hopeful. But the article itself starts off with a poll that indicates that the Palestinian Arabs will never learn:

A public opinion poll published this week by the Bet Sahour-based Palestinian Center for Public Opinion showed that 73 percent of the Palestinians miss Yasser Arafat. The poll, which covered a random sample of 825 Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was conducted on the eve of the first anniversary of Arafat's death.

For the height of irony, go to Soccerdad's post "Rabbo rousing" about Yasser Abed Rabbo's column--"A year after Arafat". Rabbo is a PLO executive committee member and co-author of the Geneva Initiative with Yossi Beilin. Once you know that, and the fact that his piece is appearing in Haaretz, and you get the idea.

Speaking of irony, the Jerusalem Post article notes that negative feelings that the Palestinians have about Arafat don't make it to the press:

Of course, such reactions never make their way into the PA-controlled media, despite the fact that these are not lone voices in the desert. Nor do they appear in most of the foreign media because many people still think that it's wrong to "hang dirty laundry in public."

Imagine. Palestinian Arabs lead the world in suicide bombings, have murdered thousands of innocent civilians, and the dirty laundry that they're afraid that people will find out about is that the PA is riddled with corruption.

Technorati Tags: Israel and Palestinians and Arafat.