Arafat

Arafat embodies the total lack of any moral authority. He certainly does not come across as a Stateman. Robert Fisk's assessment of of him is dead on. He says, of Arafat, that, "He is a wearying man, not just in his repeated death but in life as well, a man who married the Revolution -- as his wife was to discover -- rather than develop a coherent strategy for a people under occupation. And in the end, he became like so many other Arab leaders -- and as the Israelis intended him to be -- a little dictator, handing out dollars and euros to his ageing but loyal cronies, falsely promising democracy, clinging to power in his shambles of an office in Ramallah. Had he done what he was supposed to do -- had he governed "Palestine" (the quotation marks are daily more important) with ruthlessness and crushed all opposition and accepted all Israel's demands -- he would be able now to visit Jerusalem, even Washington."