Yasser Arafat

[Althusser]

What are your opinions of Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini?

[L.A.P.]

bourgeois as fuck

[Prometeo liberado]

Did what he could with what he had, and ideologically he didn't have much. And yes, very bourgeois.

[cynicles]

Filthy callaborationist who sold his people out. No doubt a role models for Abbas, Fayyad, Haniyeh and Mishaal.

[blake 3:17]

I hold Arafat in higher esteem than most here. To head Fatah as an effective popular organization and keep some elements of democracy in the PLO and PNC is kind of an amazing feat.

If the Israelis had been willing to bargain in good faith, Arafat would be held in the same esteem as Nelson Mandela.

[Fruit of Ulysses]

Arafat was a survivor and he did what he needed to defend his peoples interests. He wasn't a brilliant ideologue but he none the less strove to establish socialized forms of economic relations in Palestine; they may not always exactly fit doctrinaire Marxist definitions of socialist economics but they received popular support, served the interest of the common person and had a progressive role in the context of Arab culture.

He spent the better part of his life battling against the pinacle imperialist savagery and was a savy diplomat as grew older, I hav mixed feelings about the Oslo stuff but it wasnt an appaling betrayal like what Anwar Sadat. Intellectuals and activists in the Arab movement abroad rejected the agreements on certain philosophical grounds but the actual Palestinian masses were happy with a taste of peace and a degree of self-government.

He did much more for the world revolution than armchair revolutionaries who can judge him with ease in front of a computer screen. How many of you have caused concrete damage to the imperialist war machine and established recognition (even if on a limited scale) of the nationhood of an oppressed people? He was the FIRST leader of an armed Palestinian Resistance who was ACTUALLY PALESTINIAN, and while there were problems of corruption you must remember that the people he would mobilize were a people who lived barely able to scrape by.

The only thing "bourgeois" about him from a "socialist" perspective would be his nationalistic and islamic beliefs but the fact is, he was a popular leader of the Palestinian movement, an Arab-Islamic movement for an Arab Islamic people. He reflected that identity and today his name still serves as rallying point for Arabs of all regions and religeous affiliation.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

he had a long name

[GoddessCleoLover]

He had sticky fingers, too.

[cynicles]

Arafat was a survivor and he did what he needed to defend his peoples interests. He wasn't a brilliant ideologue but he none the less strove to establish socialized forms of economic relations in Palestine; they may not always exactly fit doctrinaire Marxist definitions of socialist economics but they received popular support, served the interest of the common person and had a progressive role in the context of Arab culture.

He spent the better part of his life battling against the pinacle imperialist savagery and was a savy diplomat as grew older, I hav mixed feelings about the Oslo stuff but it wasnt an appaling betrayal like what Anwar Sadat. Intellectuals and activists in the Arab movement abroad rejected the agreements on certain philosophical grounds but the actual Palestinian masses were happy with a taste of peace and a degree of self-government.

He did much more for the world revolution than armchair revolutionaries who can judge him with ease in front of a computer screen. How many of you have caused concrete damage to the imperialist war machine and established recognition (even if on a limited scale) of the nationhood of an oppressed people? He was the FIRST leader of an armed Palestinian Resistance who was ACTUALLY PALESTINIAN, and while there were problems of corruption you must remember that the people he would mobilize were a people who lived barely able to scrape by.

The only thing "bourgeois" about him from a "socialist" perspective would be his nationalistic and islamic beliefs but the fact is, he was a popular leader of the Palestinian movement, an Arab-Islamic movement for an Arab Islamic people. He reflected that identity and today his name still serves as rallying point for Arabs of all regions and religeous affiliation.

Islamic? He was an Arab Nationalist. The Islamic movements are Hamas and the PIJ. He was conservative and could have been more secular but it wasn't an islamic movement. In addition to that I don't give a fuck that he did some hiding in a bunker and organized some resistance, he also collaborated and sold the movmeent out at the end while collaborating with gas and oil monarchies to crush more leftwing groups that threatened his political hegemony over the movement. And what is this 'peace' and 'degree of self-governance' you're talking about?

[Rafiq]

It irritates me, how people automatically catagorize every significant Arab leader or organization as "Islamic". Islam is not intristic to Arab nationalism, the Islamists and Nationalists have always been bitter enemies.

[blake 3:17]

During the 1980s, Fatah ran at least 120 successful operations preventing terrorism and assassination in Europe. The PLO field agents and organization didn't want to take credit because they didn't want to embarrass the Europeans police forces!