September 15, 2003
The Downside of Killing Arafat

It doesn't sound like there would be much of a downside to killing Arafat, at least according to Saeb Erekat, who admits that a major terrorist organization would be "killed" but that at most only one other Palestinian would be killed in the resulting turmoil

Erekat, an Arafat loyalist, said the death of
the Palestinian leader would lead to anarchy in the PA. "Deportation would lead to killing Arafat, and if Arafat is killed then the Palestinian Authority is also killed," Erekat told Army Radio. "Probably the first thing they will do is come to my house and shoot me, and kill me and kill all Palestinian moderates."

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at September 15, 2003 07:03 AM
Comments

And why would they kill Erekat?
Could it be that all sides hate him and Arafat and their rich cronies for stealing, blackmailing and grafting all of the money and businesses in the West Bank and Gaza?? Nahhhhhhhhhhhhhh........

Don't worry Erekat would be in France faster than you can shake a stick with his hundreds of millions alongside the rest of the PLOocracy before he would let himself be killed.

As far as I can see, I say let's kill him if this would be the result.

Posted by: Mike on September 15, 2003 09:50 AM

"Palestinian moderates"? It wouldn't be too difficult to kill "all" of them. They could probably meet in a phone booth.

Posted by: BarCodeKing on September 15, 2003 11:04 AM

Erekat told Army Radio. "Probably the first thing they will do is come to my house and shoot me, and kill me and kill all Palestinian moderates."

And that's a bad thing thing because....?

Posted by: Scott R on September 15, 2003 05:36 PM

Besides the joke about palestinian moderates, I find this interesting because at the same time, Saeb's buddy Terje Roed-Larsen, the U.N. envoy to the Middle East, "stressed that Arafat is the democratically elected leader who 'embodies Palestinian identity and national aspirations.'"

Now, which is it? If the palestinians can be counted among the democracies of the world, ruled by law, why should Arafat's death cause a governmental collapse? I thought that only happened under dictatorships, ruled by the cruel whimsy of one man. It's not possible that the UN is trying to whitewash a terrorist, is it?

Actually, I have found a few different versions of this quote. More on my blog.

Posted by: Terry Notus on September 15, 2003 08:32 PM
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