February 27, 2003

YASIR ARAFAT SENDS HOLIDAY GREETINGS TO SADDAM

       Historians of twentieth century totalitarianism will be puzzled by the numbers of European politicians and masses eager to submit to murderous dictators. This is as much a question of psychopathology as of political science. Yet today we find the very same phenomenon, the romanticizing of murderous cowards, the eagerness to idealize barbarians. Peace lovers sing songs of love and compassion while embracing sadistic torturers like Yasir Arafat and Saddam Hussein. Underlying much of the so-called peace movement is a fascination with power, with dictators, with submission to the boot in the face-- a longing for a maximum leader, a Stalin, Hitler, Osama who promises perfection.

      The utopian longing and temptation is impatient with democracy, for democracy acknowledges the limitations and imperfections of humanity. Occasionally a devotee of utopianism is awakened by a harsh dose of reality; Ed Koch, former mayor of New York famously said that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. A number of left utopians, following 9-11, seem to be awakening from their dream of perfection--Christopher Hitchens is the most recent, but Oriana Fallaci is perhaps the most noteworthy. She was, for many years a heroine of the left. Her assessment of Yasir Arafat is worth reading and keeping in mind the next time we hear from the EU about Arafat's virtues. "This nonentity who thanks to the money of the Saudi Royal Family plays the Mussolini ad perpetuum and in his megalomania believes he will pass into History as the George Washington of Palestine. This ungrammatical wretch who when I interviewed him was unable even to put together a complete sentence, to make articulate conversation. So that to put it all together, write it, publish it, cost me a tremendous effort and I concluded that compared to him even Ghaddafi sounds like Leonardo da Vinci. This false warrior who always goes around in uniform like Pinochet, never putting on civilian garb, and yet despite this has never participated in a battle. War is something he sends, has always sent, others to do for him. That is, the poor souls who believe in him. This pompous incompetent who playing the part of Head of State caused the failure of the Camp David negotiations, Clinton’s mediation. No-no-I-want-Jerusalem-all-to-myself. This eternal liar who has a flash of sincerity only when (in private) he denies Israel’s right to exist, and who as I say in my book contradicts himself every five minutes. He always plays the double-cross, lies even if you ask him what time it is, so that you can never trust him. Never! With him you will always wind up systematically betrayed. This eternal terrorist who knows only how to be a terrorist (while keeping himself safe...."

      And perhaps some will awaken from their fantasies when they read this appalling letter*, written this month, from Arafat to Saddam. Can there be any further doubt that Saddam and terrorism are intertwined? As we contemplate the coming pressure on Israel to yield to the demands for an independent Palestinian state, let us never forget the nature of the Palestinian leaders, their primitive mentation, and their supporters in the oil rich Arab world.

* see: insomnomaniac

Posted at 08:49 PM by