On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:00:40 -0800, Craig Lalley <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>--- Wirt Atmar <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> From today's AP newswire:
>>
>> ======================================
>>
>> Updated: 10:00 AM EST
>> Cat Stevens Receives Peace Prize
>> Singer Now Known as Yusuf Islam Praised for Charity Work
>>
>
>Wirt,
>
>That's nothing, Arafat received the Nobel Peace prize in 1994.
>
>-Craig
>
and now he is dead. Hopefully the peace-process will now finally start.

Palestinian Leader Arafat Dies at 75 By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press
Writer

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Yasser Arafat, revered as the beacon of Palestinian
statehood but reviled as a sponsor of terrorism, died Thursday at the age
of 75.

His passing marked the end of an era in modern Middle East history, and
prompted calls from President Bush and other world leaders to seize the
moment to spur new efforts at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

A wave of grief quickly swept across the West Bank and Gaza Strip after
Arafat died in a French military hospital at 3:30 a.m.

Thousands of Palestinians ran into the streets, clutching his photograph,
crying and wondering about their future without the man who embodied their
struggle for statehood.

"He is our father," Namia Abu-Safia, 48, said sobbing in the Jebaliya
refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. "He is Palestine."

Black smoke from burning tires rose across the Gaza Strip, gunmen fired
into the air in grief. Palestinian flags at Arafat's battered compound here
were lowered to half staff. Church bells rang out, and Quranic verses were
played for hours over mosque loudspeakers. Palestinian officials announced
40 days of mourning for Arafat.

Fearing the mourning could rapidly turn into rioting, Israel quickly sealed
the West Bank and Gaza Strip and increased security at Jewish settlements.

The death of Arafat, who ruled firmly over squabbling Palestinian factions
for four decades, left Palestinians without a strong leader for the first
time. It raised concern that the scramble to claim Arafat's mantle could
fragment the Palestinian leadership or spark chaos and factional fighting
in the streets.

In a hurried effort to project continuity, the PLO elected former
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas as its new chief, virtually
ensuring that he will succeed Arafat as leader of the Palestinians, at
least in the short term.

The Palestinian legislature also swore in Parliament Speaker Rauhi Fattouh
as caretaker president of the Palestinian Authority until elections can be
held in 60 days, according to Palestinian law.

President Bush said the passing of Arafat was a "significant moment" in
Palestinian history and expressed hope that Palestinians would achieve
statehood and peace with Israel.

"During the period of transition that is ahead, we urge all in the region
and throughout the world to join in helping make progress toward these
goals and toward the ultimate goal of peace," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has shunned his longtime nemesis
as a terrorist and obstructionist, said Arafat's death could serve as
a "historic turning point in the Middle East" and expressed hope the
Palestinians would now work to stop terrorism. In a sign of the enmity the
two men shared even in death, Sharon refused to mention Arafat by name.

Insisting that with Arafat at the helm it was impossible to discuss peace
with the Palestinians, Sharon had pushed forward with his "unilateral
disengagement" plan. Under the plan, Israel will evacuate the Gaza Strip
next year and continue building a West Bank barrier to separate Israelis
from Palestinians.

Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian foreign minister, called on Israel to resume
implementation of the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan. He told The
Associated Press that Israel had used its dislike for Arafat as an excuse
for avoiding obligations to withdraw from West Bank towns.

"Now, the road is open, and we are telling the Israelis, welcome. If you
want to implement the road map, then implement it," Shaath said. "It was
the path of President Arafat, and we will go on the path of Arafat."

French President Jacques Chirac eulogized Arafat as a "man of courage and
conviction who, for 40 years, has been the incarnation of the Palestinians'
combat for recognition of their national rights."

But others questioned Arafat's legacy.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Arafat could have helped secure
Middle East peace by accepting a deal in 2000 that would have resulted in
the Israelis "agreeing to about 90 percent of what the Palestinians had
wanted," Howard said. He also said Arafat could have done more to restrain
terrorists.

Arafat was flown to a French military hospital in Clamart, outside of
Paris, on Oct. 29 after his health began deteriorating last month. It was
the first time in nearly three years that he left his compound in Ramallah,
where he was held a virtual prisoner by Israel.

Palestinian officials initially insisted he had a lingering case of the
flu, but they grew increasingly concerned when he did not recover.

Neither his doctors nor Palestinian leaders would say what killed him.

"He closed his eyes and his big heart stopped. He left for God but he is
still among this great people," said senior Arafat aide Tayeb Abdel Rahim,
who broke into tears as he announced Arafat's death.

Arafat was to be flown Thursday from Paris to Cairo, where a funeral
service attended by foreign dignitaries will be held for him Friday
morning. His body will then be flown by helicopter to his Ramallah
compound, called the Muqata, for services and burial in a mausoleum later
in the day.

The Israeli military said it would restrict access to the burial, allowing
only Palestinians with permits to attend, but would allow mourners to hold
processions in towns and refugee camps.

As much as his life was filled with controversy, so too was Arafat's death.

The Palestinians had demanded Arafat be buried in Jerusalem on the disputed
holy site that once held the biblical Jewish temples and now the Al Aqsa
Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine.

Israel refused, fearing a Jerusalem burial would strengthen Palestinians'
claims to a city they envision as a capital of a future Palestinian state.

In a compromise, the Palestinians agreed to bury him at his compound in
Ramallah, battered and strewn with rubble from repeated Israeli raids. But
they plan to line his grave with soil taken from the Al Aqsa Mosque
compound, said Ahmed Ghneim, a Fatah leader, and he is to be interred in a
cement box, so he can be moved to Jerusalem for burial when the opportunity
presents itself.

Seldom in public without his military uniform and his checkered keffiyeh
headdress, Arafat kept the Palestinians' cause at the center of the Arab-
Israeli conflict. But he fell short of creating a Palestinian state, and,
along with other secular Arab leaders of his generation, he saw his
influence weakened by the rise of radical Islam in recent years.

Revered by his own people, Arafat was reviled by others. He was accused of
secretly fomenting attacks on Israelis while proclaiming brotherhood and
claiming to have put terrorism aside. Many Israelis felt the paunchy 5-
foot, 2-inch Palestinian's real goal remained the destruction of the Jewish
state.

Arafat became one of the world's most familiar faces after addressing the
U.N. General Assembly in New York in 1974, when he entered the chamber
wearing a holster and carrying a twig. "Today I have come bearing an olive
branch and a freedom fighter's gun," he said. "Do not let the olive branch
fall from my hand."

Two decades later, he shook hands at the White House with Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin on a peace deal that formally recognized Israel's
right to exist while granting the Palestinians limited self-rule in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. The pact led to the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for
Arafat, Rabin and then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

But the accord quickly unraveled amid mutual suspicions and accusations of
treaty violations. A new round of violence that erupted in the fall of 2000
has killed some 4,000 people, three-quarters of them Palestinians.

"The biggest mistake of Arafat was when he turned to terror. His greatest
achievements were when he tried to build peace," Peres said.

The Israeli and U.S. governments said Arafat deserved much of the blame for
the derailing of the peace process. Even many of his own people began
whispering against Arafat, expressing disgruntlement over corruption,
lawlessness and a bad economy in the Palestinian areas.

A resilient survivor of war with Israel, assassination attempts — even a
plane crash, Arafat was born Rahman Abdel-Raouf Arafat Al-Qudwa on Aug. 4,
1929, the fifth of seven children of a Palestinian merchant killed in the
1948 war over Israel's creation. There is disagreement whether he was born
in Gaza or in Cairo.

Educated as an engineer in Egypt, Arafat served in the Egyptian army and
then started a construction firm in Kuwait. It was there that he founded
the Fatah movement, which became the core of the PLO.

After the Arabs' humbling defeat by Israel in the six-day war of 1967, the
PLO thrust itself on the world's front pages by sending its gunmen out to
hijack airplanes, machine gun airports and kill Israeli athletes at the
1972 Summer Olympics.

"As long as the world saw Palestinians as no more than refugees standing in
line for U.N. rations, it was not likely to respect them. Now that the
Palestinians carry rifles the situation has changed," Arafat explained.

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