November 12, 2004
GREATEST PERSON DIES
Muhammad Ali, call your lawyers:
Shortly after dawn, Yasser Abed Rabbo, a Palestinian cabinet minister, had emerged from Mr Arafat's compound, the muqata, to announce the passing of the "greatest person in human history".
Hey, why limit it to human history? Arafat was also the Seabiscuit of fish. At least, thanks to a kindly group of self-exploders, we’ll always be able to remember him:
A section of the fractured al-Aqsa martyrs' brigades, responsible for numerous suicide bombings, announced it had changed its name to the Martyr Arafat brigades.
Israel had been attempting to martyr Arafat for years. A little credit where it’s due, people.
(Via reader Torsten K., of Vancouver, Canada)
UPDATE. John le Carré -- real name David Cornwell -- describes his erotically-charged meeting with Arafat:
"Mr David, why have you come here?" he demanded, unexpectedly using my Christian name while he studied me, eyes like a worried doctor.
"Mr Chairman, I have come to put my hand on the Palestinian heart."
He seized my hand and pressed it to his breast. "Mr David! It is here! It is here!"
UPDATE II. Via contributor J. F. Beck, here’s Melanie Phillips:
The degradation and corruption of British and western society, not to mention the United Nations, are now on sickening display for all with eyes to see from the disgusting response to the death of Arafat.
Disgusting responses from Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac, Nelson Mandela, and Jack Straw are thereafter listed.
UPDATE III. OmbudsGod has more revolting reaction.
UPDATE IV. The dignitaries attending Arafat's funeral weren’t treated very dignitarily:
Yasser Arafat's solemn funeral procession in Egypt ended with confusion for many on Friday as prime ministers, foreign ministers and other dignitaries were left stranded and searching for their cars in the street.
"It's a mess," said one of the Arab officials, milling around on the roadside after Arafat's coffin entered the Cairo military airbase to be flown to Ramallah.
"Yasser Arafat's life was like this, his death should be like this," added another senior Arab official, an allusion to what some saw as Arafat's preference for Byzantine administrative structures that confused even his closest aides.
UPDATE V. A headline in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Posted by Tim Blair at November 12, 2004 11:07 PMIsrael calls the shots even after death
Excuse me while I empty the contents of my stomach in a contemptuous manner.
Posted by: Mike Jericho at November 12, 2004 at 11:22 PMSBS News continued its grovelling with nearly all of tonight's 9:30 news dedicated to Arafat's life and his funeral. Robert Fisk was a guest star - being interviewed over his thoughts on the funeral and the future of "peace" in the Middle East by Anton Enis.
Contrast all of this with the amount of time they dedicated to the death of Ronald Reagan earlier this year. "Balanced" and "unbiased" my arse, SBS!
In other news: TIM BLAIR FOR PM!
Posted by: Richard at November 12, 2004 at 11:24 PMOne wonders what the archaic version of "Cornwell" is. "Well" is an aperture, after all. At any rate, Cornwell was rubbing Arafart's breast, and Jimmy Carter was rubbing his feet.
Posted by: Crazy Chester at November 12, 2004 at 11:30 PMHas le Carré had an aids test?
On the subject of pillow biters, how do all the orgy boys into which Arafat slipped his gnarly Palestinian sausage feel today knowing that the Great One was giving them a dose of HIV?
Here's how it probably worked. Arafat injected some young stud with a dose of HIV. His aides then told the recipient of his fate and laid out the options: your family will either know you as a diseased gay, or you can strap on a bomb and take a few Jews with you on the way to a martyrs death.
What a diseased fuck.
Hang on a minute. I must be channeling Tim Dunlop. Isn't it Dunlop that argues from no evidence to firm conclusions? BTW, what's the author of Australia's finest PhD had to say on Arafat?
Posted by: Arathin at November 12, 2004 at 11:39 PM"greatest person in human history".
Hahahahah! Nigger Please!!! Come on, Arabfat is in Hell and being spat on by all the innocent children on both sides he sacrificed to amount billions. As some said he was all "tactics" i.e. the stupid fuck could not lie straight in bed. As with all the Arabs I have had dealings with it's all about outfoxing your opponent for outfoxings' sake and they always lose sight of the REASON for the negotiations.
As you all know Arafat never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. He was the WORST thing anyone could want. Maybe we can all get some goddamn peace now. But I can tell you I ain't holding my breath. Fuck him to Hades.
Posted by: Dog at November 13, 2004 at 12:04 AMHere is a worthy obituary for Arafat. Enjoy!
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/11/arafat_the_monster/
Yeah, the SBS dedication to Arafat tonight was sickening. It's time to get SBS off the taxpayer's payroll.
Posted by: Observer at November 13, 2004 at 12:32 AMThe bus carrying Arafat to his heavenly reward is halfway across the bridge over the river Styx when it explodes. Rinse. Repeat. For eternity.
Posted by: Todd at November 13, 2004 at 12:41 AMEeeeeewwwwwwww! Maybe these clowns will memoralize Arafart by blowing themselves up. One can always hope.
Posted by: The Real JeffS at November 13, 2004 at 12:43 AMNypost comes thru with a nice front page
http://nypost.com/img/front111204.gif
Posted by: Ripclawe at November 13, 2004 at 12:49 AMImus's Charles McCord, wrapping up the Arafat funeral celebration and riot, in Cronkite voice, ``The lid closes on another Arab.''
Arafat gets to the Gates of Heaven-
ST. PETER: Name?
ARAFAT (realizing Mohammud has made a horrible mistake): Uhhh... Ringo Starr.
Posted by: Dave S. at November 13, 2004 at 01:02 AMHas anyone said what the ol' mass murderer died of?
Posted by: jlchydro at November 13, 2004 at 01:12 AMHas anyone said what the ol' mass murderer died of?
Posted by: jlchydro at November 13, 2004 at 01:13 AMI heard a rumor that 72 suicide bombers had gotten together and agreed to donate 1 virgin each to the old murderer.
Posted by: Brian Jones at November 13, 2004 at 01:20 AMI started reading a Le Carre novel once. That's several hours of my life I want back.
One thing about Le Carre, judging by the films based on his books, such as The Russia House & The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (the latter of which is actually very good). He always seemed, to my mind, to paint the warsaw pact and the NATO allies as two sides of the same coin. Complete moral equivlancy. Is his problem nowadays similar, namely so much moral equivlancy the idiot can't see wood for the trees (or the terrorist nutcase for the statesman)?
Posted by: Wilbur at November 13, 2004 at 01:22 AMI am finding it interesting to compare responses to Arafat's death and then look back for those same people's (or organization's) reponses to the death of President Ronald Reagan.
Posted by: Todd at November 13, 2004 at 01:27 AMLet them sniffle. The fucker is still dead.
Posted by: richard mcenroe at November 13, 2004 at 02:24 AM"It's a mess"
This is news? Wake up, world!
Posted by: The Real JeffS at November 13, 2004 at 02:28 AM"He always seemed, to my mind, to paint the warsaw pact and the NATO allies as two sides of the same coin. Complete moral equivlancy."
That's sort of the point behind good spy novels. They're about the moral implications of abandoning day-to-day morality in the service of some higher cause. To the individuals involved, the "big picture" probably gets murky indeed sometimes.
But anyway, if Arafat winds him up so much, I'm hoping Le Carre has some equally steamy prose about other, far sexier world leaders. Has he ever met Qgkhadaffy? Kim Jong Il? I hear those guys smell good, too.
Posted by: Matt at November 13, 2004 at 04:08 AMFrom the linked article in Update V:
"Most fortunate were the people of Ramallah, who shut shops and offices, and thronged the area around the Mukata to bid goodbye to the man who had symbolised the Palestinian struggle for 40 years."
[snip]
"The United States delivered a calculated put-down by sending a relatively minor official, William Burns, an assistant secretary of state, to the funeral of a head of state who once shared the Nobel Peace Prize with his Israeli counterparts Shimon Peres and the late Yitzhak Rabin."
Nice to see more [sarcasm] unbiased reporting [/sarcasm] from the Stupid Mundane Hiccup. It's almost as "unbiased" as the AP reporting on the Coalition wounded coming out of Fallujah.
Posted by: The Real JeffS at November 13, 2004 at 05:45 AMLet them sniffle. The fucker is still dead.
And this is one lady who is doing an unabashed, unrestrained, gleeful Happy Snoopy Dance about it.
Posted by: Rebecca at November 13, 2004 at 06:02 AMI always thought Arafat's greatest achievement was in lending his name to the early phase of male sexual arousal:
"Man, that chick looked so hot, just one look and I got a Yasser".
(Half a fat).
Posted by: Secret Squirrel at November 13, 2004 at 06:33 AMThe Le Carre novel referred to would probably have been "Little Drummer Girl" (later a bad movie). There was always a underlying thread of anti-Americanism and leftish intellectual sneer in Le Carre's novels (he came from the same generational background as Philby, Blunt et al) but in LDG his sympathy for lost causes was particularly evident. Even though the good guys (Mossad) won in the end, the Palestinian players were all described with sickening sentiment and the book ends with the hapless heroine -Charley - racked with guilt over her part in bringing down a terrorist ring.
I wasn't particularly surprised when Le Carre stuck his nose into the recent Presidential elections.
JeffS, not to mention that the quote you included calls Arafat "a head of state". Errm, what state would that be, dear SMH hacks?
Posted by: PW at November 13, 2004 at 06:53 AMArafat was feted by the secular left; just look at Chiracs bedside manners; in a unilateral adhoc manner Annan posthumously raised Arafat to statesman status; they say Arafat was key to all terrorism incl al Qaida; where does that put Annan and Chirac - sponsors of terror?
Go Archbishop Pell, lay the boot in to secular democracy and militant Islam.
Posted by: rog at November 13, 2004 at 07:09 AMA fitting farewell would have been to strap several hundred pounds of explosives to his corpse and blow in into a fine aerosol.
Posted by: Dorian at November 13, 2004 at 07:28 AMI've tried for several hours to come up with an adjectival phrase that properly describes Mr. Cornwell's unctuous flapdoodle. The best I could do is "maggot-gagging", but that seems puny and inadequate. Can somebody help me out with a better phrase?
Posted by: Person of Choler at November 13, 2004 at 07:53 AMPW, you're right, it does say that. I was so pissed over the obvious bias that I missed the fact the SMH made another mistake.
Well, it is the SMH. Maybe someone in a Third World country and suffering from cholera needs more asswipe.
Posted by: The Real JeffS at November 13, 2004 at 08:36 AMLast night in America, in honor of Veteran's Day, ABC showed the film, 'Saving Private Ryan'.
The film, as you know depicts the deaths of Americans (off screen also Brits and Canadians) fighting to liberate France.
On the news afterward, they showed the French Government giving the murderous thieving thug Arafat a send off with full military honors.
I can't even describe how revolted and angry I was...the worst Francophobe couldn't dream up a scenario like that and yet there it was!
Unreal.
Posted by: JDB at November 13, 2004 at 09:13 AMAbout that John Le Carre piece, was I the only one who lost his lunch when reading it?
Posted by: Room 237 at November 13, 2004 at 09:34 AMI cut these from a link in lgf-not my work
Here are those curses if you're lazy or tired:
A Selection of Curses
from Nahum Stutchkoff's Thesaurus of the Yiddish Language
Ale tsores vos ikh hob oyf mayn hartsn, zoln oysgeyn tsu zayn kop.
All problems I have in my heart, should go to his head.
Zol es im onkumn vos ikh vintsh im (khotsh a helft, khotsh halb, khotsh a tsent kheylik).
Let what I wish on him come true (most, even half, even just 10%).
Eyn imglik iz far im veynik.
One misfortune is too few for him.
Finstere leyd zol nor di mama oyf im zen.
Black sorrow is all that his mother should see of him.
Khasene hobn zol er mit di malekh hamoves tokhter.
He should marry the daughter of the Angel of Death.
Azoy fil ritzinoyl zol er oystrinkn.
He should drink too much castor oil.
Zol er krenken un gedenken.
Let him suffer and remember.
Zalts im in di oygen, feffer im in di noz.
Throw salt in his eyes, pepper in his nose.
Shteyner af zayne beyner.
Stones on his bones.
A kramp (a kram, a kortsh) im in layb (in boyakh, in di kishkes, in di gederem, in di finger).
A cramp in his body (in his stomach, in his guts, in his bowels, in his fingers and toes).
Trinkn zoln im piavkes.
Leeches should drink him dry.
Lakhn zol er mit yashtherkes.
He should laugh with lizards.
Meshuga zol er vern un arumloyfn (iber di gasn).
He should go nuts and run around (through the streets).
A meshugener zol men oyshraybn, un im araynshraybn.
They should free a madman, and lock him up.
Gut zol oyf im onshikn fin di tsen makes di beste.
God should visit upon him the best of the Ten Plagues.
Fransn zol esn zayn layb.
Venereal disease should consume his body.
Farshporn zol er oyf(tsu)shteyn?
Why bother getting up alive?
A kleyn kind zol nokh im heysn.
A young child should be named after him.
Vi tsu derleb ikh im shoyn tsu bagrobn.
I should outlive him long enough to bury him.
Got zol im bentshn mit dray mentshn: eyner zol im haltn, der tsveyter zol im shpaltn un der driter zol im ba’haltn.
God should bless him with three people: one should grab him, the second should stab him and the third should hide him.
Vifil yor er iz gegangn oyf di fis zol er geyn af di hent un di iberike zol er zikh sharn oyf di hintn.
As many years as he’s walked on his feet, let him walk on his hands, and for the rest of the time he should crawl along on his ass.
A groys gesheft zol er hobn mit shroyre: vus er hot, zol men bay im nit fregn, un vos men fregt zol er nisht hobn.
He should have a large store, and whatever people ask for he shouldn’t have, and what he does have shouldn’t be requested.
Ale tseyn zoln bay im aroysfaln, not eyner zol im blaybn oyf tsonveytung.
All his teeth should fall out except one to make him suffer.
In di zumerdike teg zol er zitsn shive, un in di vinterdike nekht zikh raysn af di tseyn.
On summer days he should mourn, and on wintry nights, he should torture himself.
Posted by: Rose at November 13, 2004 at 09:43 AM
The best way to remember and honour the memories of those that died, those left to suffer and grieve, because of the 'brave leadership' from this piece of primordial ordure- is to keep his name alive each and every day-send messages round the GLOBAL /WEB mocking and laughing, SNEERING how a people have been so well conned since the emergence of the first lump of slime 'the prophet' ??!! ha aha hah- yes I know they had no choice but when they wake up as a group, and realise freedom beckons-in submission you never are free. Open the cage and if there is anything worth returning to you are welcome to it or open the dictionary where you will find the word 'conned'.
Tears will never bring back the the victims, but even if we are laughing thru' a veil of tears it will serve to remind us and teach others what a s--t this vile creature was.There is intelligent life I am sure even in'Palestine' and we have to hold out a hand in friendship to those willing to take the first steps.
I am sure there are many old scores and bitterness in Palestine against this 'sewer rat fart' but fear has retstrained their hand.
REMIND THE WORLD DAILY OF HOW HE USED HIS DISEASE RIDDEN BODY AND WHAT HE DID TO TO THE INNOCCENT CHILDREN OF 'HIS' PEOPLE AND THE LIES HE USED AND THE BILLIONS STOLEN FROM THEM SO THAT THEY DIE IN THE GUTTER WHILST HE DIES IN LUXOURY.
G-D DAMN HIM FOR ALLL ETERNITY.
May God bless the memory of all his victims
WE WILL REMEMBER and KEEP THE FIRES STOKED AGAINST HIS EVIL MEMORY
ARAFART
Not long ago, Yasser Arafart, being ill and concerned about his mortality, consults a psychic about the date of his death.
Closing her eyes and silently reaching into the realm of the future she finds the answer: "You will die on a Jewish holiday."
"Which one?'" Arafat asks nervously.
"It doesn't matter," replied the psychic. Whenever you die, it'll be a Jewish holiday."
Posted by: Rose at November 13, 2004 at 10:04 AMI wondered why Arafat was put into a "stone coffin".
then i read how the Ayatollah Khomeini laid in a wooden coffin, was torn to shreds by his admirers so they could take home body parts as souvenirs. Ah the Wonders of islam will never cease to amaze!
The Jerusalem Post reports that the UN lowered its flag to half-mast, while UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was 'deeply moved' by the news
Perhaps the UN did this to honour the war dead on Remembrance Day?
/sarcasm off.
Posted by: davo at November 13, 2004 at 12:16 PMDaniel Silva, has resurrected the form; first in
the Killer Artist,adding anti-Catholicism worthy
of the David's Pope bashing brother John or the
likeminded American James Carroll; in the Confessor. The difference between Le Carre and Deighton (Le Carre was of the next generation after Philby et al)is that the latter was never dismissive of the job; the bureaucracy yes; but not the mission. Both Silva & Le Carre shared a
similar anti-hero; a terrorist loosely based on
Al Salameh; the operational heart of Black September; who was himself the son of a Jew baiting sheik. Ignatius, has his take on the
similar figure; born in Baghdad, the son of
a follower of Ali Ghailani; the Iraqi vichy
stand in.
At least the Australian got it right today:
Posted by: Art Vandelay at November 13, 2004 at 03:12 PMJust reading in our local rag an account of a doctor who ended up in Arafats court. At thew time he was working for the US CDC and he was sent over to survey the cholera epidemic that was running through Gaza. Arafat dismissed any epidemic saying that it was only 'dirty people' coming into Gaza and as he was surrounded by Arafats bodyguards the doctor avoided any conflict.
Also at the 'salon' was the US ambassador to Tel Aviv who was pressing Arafat to attend a meeting in Brussels. Arafat was playing hard to get and had to be convinced to attend. This meeeting was to discuss the handing over to Arafat $US85M to be used to better the refugees lot and to raise Arafat's standing in Palestine. Arafat was seen by the Clinton admin as a 'moderate'.
Posted by: rog at November 13, 2004 at 04:04 PMWell I've now been banned for Chris Shiels' progressive/liberal blog Back Pages for offending Chris.
He has no problem giving offence but is unable to accept it.
He believes that Arafat embodies the Palestine struggle against the Israel 'problem'.
Posted by: rog at November 13, 2004 at 05:54 PMWe really do live in a world gone mad. Our very civilization is under attack and the people who can be expected to suffer most if those who threaten us take over are collectively undertaking the "Dianafication" of the most evil, vicious and vindictive of our enemies.
"After the goldrush", anyone???
Posted by: jlchydro at November 13, 2004 at 07:38 PM"The United States delivered a calculated put-down by sending a relatively minor official, William Burns, an assistant secretary of state, to the funeral of a head of state who once shared the Nobel Peace Prize with his Israeli counterparts Shimon Peres and the late Yitzhak Rabin."
They should have sent the guy who cleans the toilets.(I say this rhetorically, because I would not like to so demean an honest working man.)
On second thought, maybe they should have sent Charles Manson.
Posted by: Ernie G at November 14, 2004 at 01:26 AM