Nothing to cry over

How did I feel when I heard Yasser Arafat was dead? Well, I thought to myself that maybe his death is not necessarily a bad thing. I shouldn't go so far as to say it is good that he is dead, but his death is certainly nothing to cry over. Arafat was a murderer and master manipulator who caused his people to suffer while making himself and those around him rich. Sound familiar? Saddam Hussein will hopefully suffer the same painful fate.\nBorn in 1929, Arafat quickly developed many of the traits that would characterize his later years. He was said to be obsessive about leading and getting his way. Then in the late 1950s he joined a group of his comrades in Kuwait to form the Fatah movement. His main control over the group quickly became the money he was able to bring in and the fact that he bribed others to join him. He fought against Israel in 1968 and Jordan in 1970. He began his downward spiral of serious errors in 1991 when he supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. He lost funding and support from his Persian Gulf neighbors.\nIt wasn't all bad for him, however. In one of the greatest travesties of all time, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Yitzhak Rabin in 1994. I think we can all agree that Yasser Arafat was no Yitzhak Rabin. Arafat won that Nobel Peace Prize as a direct result of his promise to end the violence against Israel. Which he did not do.\nHowever, he would prove to have an ally in Bill Clinton. Believing he was meant to be another Jimmy Carter, Clinton brought Arafat and Ehud Barak to Camp David in 2000 to negotiate a peace deal. At Camp David, Israel agreed to withdraw from Gaza and most of the West Bank and create a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital. All Arafat had to do was acknowledge Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall, allow early warning stations in the Jordan Valley and, above all, acknowledge that the conflict was over. Palestinian negotiators wanted to accept the deal. But, characteristically thinking only of himself, Arafat refused. His life had been governed by this conflict, and he was not about to let it be resolved so easily.\nShortly after the Camp David talks failed, a horrific series of attacks rocked Israel. However, the straw that broke Israel's back was the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi. Ariel Sharon said Yasser Arafat would be confined to his compound until the killers were turned over. Rather than do a good deed and get on Sharon's good side, Arafat chose to remain in his compound thinking his people's support along with that of the international community would come to his rescue. He thought wrong. His people's support had waned under continued allegations of corruption, and his support among his neighbors was non-existent.\nIs it any wonder that groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad grew exponentially under Arafat's rule? Not only did he have one of the most corrupt governments in the Middle East, but he failed to deliver on any of the promises he made to his people. He did not establish a Palestinian state, he encouraged rather than discouraged terrorism, and he incurred the wrath of Israel by refusing to make any sort of reasonable concessions. His passing will allow for a meaningful peace process to get started.\nThere are very few people in the world whom I despise more than Yasser Arafat -- except maybe Osama bin Laden. He was a murderer who broke promise after promise after promise to the international community. He also allowed terrorists and terrorist ideas to infect his land like sexually transmitted diseases in a cheap brothel. How did I react when I heard he was dead? I didn't shed a tear.