Yasser Arafat

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Siddiqua,

I don`t know. How about begaar labour? Haris in Sindh? Brickkiln workers? Christians in the Punjab? Hindus in Sindh? Women in Pakistan in general: say, karo-kari killings? Take your pick. Even Kashmiris. Just not the Palestinians.

tahmed32 #52

“I think you cross the line of reasonableness”
Now that is an unreasonable conclusion!

Anyway, there were many wars in the history books that could easily be placed under the fake category.
Let me try to enunciate my contention here.

Modern Wars are fought on many fronts. We are way past the era when Mongol or any other hordes would jump on nations and peaceful countries for the sole purpose of plundering a given people or area.

Since the 1973 war, there has not been any military conflict between the warring countries in the ME. It would be a good idea to think about the reasons behind that. One reason would be that Arab countries are totally outclassed in military hardware and training to even think about taking Israel on in a physical battlefield.
The other and much easier to understand would be that the Arab countries have resigned to the fact that they cannot shoo Israel away from Palestinian lands physically or diplomatically. We will come to this later but I wanna take a quick look at the situation before the 1973 and after it to explain my point in more details.
There were three Arab countries that were fully involved in 1967 war and all of them suffered serious blows to their military readiness during the five days. In the 1973 war Egypt was the only active country against Israel. (Syria partially but not fully)
Egypt suffered enormous military losses during the ‘67 war and the only source it had, after the 1967 war, to replenish its military capabilities was the Soviet Union. Now if you go thru the records, you will figured out that the Egyptian army in war preparedness was well below the 1967 level.(which was already low) Hardware was not fully replaced; Air force was pretty much half of its 1967 strength and the troops moral were low. That means that Egypt militarily was not in any better shape to take on Israel by itself in 1973. Without much help from other Arab countries how was Egypt able to take on Israel and recapture the lost area considering its weakened military preparedness? Recall that Israel during the same time period 1967-1973 had increased its military capabilities way above the 1967 level.
In a physical war based on all the facts above, it is clear that Egypt was NOT in any position to force Israeli out of Sinai without some help from Angels.
Now look at the political and diplomatic aspects of the war.
Anwar Saddat, as soon as he took power, was looking for a way to get out of constant state of confrontation with Israel. There was also pressure from the US and to some extent from the Soviet Union on Egypt and Israel to bring peace in the ME. It would have been politically suicidal for Sadaat and Egypt to work with Israel without first getting lost territories back. It was also not a feasible option for Egypt to accept a gift of its own lost territory from Israel. So, if Egypt couldn’t force Israel to get Sinai back neither could it accept a gift from Israel that would have brought the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt; What should it do? The only options were to win that area back in a war or sit on negotiation table. Negotiating with Israel w/o recognizing it first was not also a viable option. Hence, a diplomatic option looked much more feasible.
Sadaat presumably agreed with all interested powers that if Egypt gets the Sinai back, Egypt would recognize Israel and work with it to peacefully to resolve all issues. This diplomatic solution was put in place thru the 1973 war, where a much weakened military power (Egypt) was able to regain its lost territory in full by presumably beating a vastly superior military power - Israel. That so called victory in the 1973 war gave Sadaat the creditability that he needed to boldly recognize Israel and still muster enough support in the country for political survival.
Within a short period after the 1973 war, Egypt recognized Israel and soon Israeli Prime Minister was in Cairo to build relationship with the largest military and political Arab power in the region. The Camp David accord amounted to an acceptance by the Arabs that they were not capable of forcing Israel in any way so they decided to back off from the Palestine issue and let Palestinian fight their war with limited help from other ME countries. Sadaat still lost his life after the Camp David accord simply because he ended up going to far in Camp David accord and many forces in Egypt considered him traitor enough to attempt to kill him in multiple efforts. One of those efforts succeeded in the early 80s.

Since 1974, Egypt is the number two recipient of the US aid behind Israel plus it is not more than a spectator in the Palestinian and Israeli struggle for the last thirty years.

I hope you are not going to be too upset when I say the 1971 between Pakistan and India was also a fake war :)

sattar # 59 writes ``Your rhetoric is unintelligent and ill-placed``

why is it `unintelligent`? I am not disputing your interpretation of Quran either. I am simply prescribing for your qadiyani community in Pakistan what you are prescribing for Palestinians. How`s that a `knee jerk` reaction?

perhaps its time for you to accept that your cute suggestion that millions of palestinians should pack their bags and move elsewhere is...sub-human. tomorrow, you might come up with the suggestion that if Iraqis don`t like US occupation, they should move elsewhere too. And so should Kashmiris and Filipino muslims and Chechnyans and.....

But interestingly, when it comes to me suggesting the same for your qadiyani community in Pakistan, you call it ``unintelligent`` rhetoric. That makes your hatred for Muslims and compassion and understanding for qadiyanis pretty clear.

ha!

Malik #48:

Your rhetoric is unintelligent and ill-placed. You wrote:

sattar # 40 writes ``Palestinians would have been better off making peace or leaving the country altogether.``

sounds like a plan. so, when are you telling your ahmedi community to move out of Pakistan? because, according to you, it is better to give in to oppression, than to fight it.

I tried to guard against this poorly thought-out conclusion … by mentioning that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) also migrated when faced with insurmountable oppression in Mecca. Do you think he accepted defeat and gave in to oppression by migrating?

I further posted from Quran … where Allah encourages the oppressed to seek out better opportunities in foreign lands when faced with insurmountable oppression at home. Do you also criticize verdict of Allah here?

You response that … well, then sattar should also tell Ahmadis to leave Pakistan … is a knee-jerk reaction … which ironically highlights ummah’s dilemma. Ummah is fighting for survival … but is unable to think or rise above sectarian, religious quibbling. Can you do better?

++++++++++

t #58, well stated.

…on Yasser Arafat
Haroon Siddiqui says in his Sunday column:

His incapacitation, even departure, may in fact give peace another chance. You can see that once you get past all the statements of the obvious:

He symbolized the Palestinian struggle. But he failed to make the transition from a resistance leader to statesman, ending up as a petty oligarch presiding over corruption and terrorism.

Of course. But there`s no denying his legacy: the inevitability of a Palestinian state, the endless postponement of which only guarantees more violence.

Arafat is like a vast banyan tree under which nothing grows. But once it dies, a new cycle of growth begins.

Yasser (#45):

… agreed about Zafrullah Sahib … an honorable man who remained dedicated to Muslim causes. And that’s part of the point I am trying to make. The Palestinian cause should be fought on basis of well-reasoned arguments ... and not senseless violence. Ummah’s emphasis needs to be on acquisition of knowledge, education, and civility. Unless they get the basics right, no Arafat or uprising will help their cause.

Mullah’s emotionally charged statements about infidels desecrating holy sites or sons of soil defending their honor with their lives … etc. are nonsense. They only add to ummah’s delusion and produce hoards of suicide bombers.

#55 fuzair

The point was to simply point out that George Habash, Wadi Haddad, Naif Hawatmeh etc. etc. were all part and parcel of the PLO at one time. Fatah, Arafat`s organization, itself has been and is still often accused of terrorist activities, what you call thuggery!


``Why not stick with causes closer to home and more relevant for us?``

This, though leaves me bemused. I`d be interested in knowing what `causes` you deem worthy of your attention.


Tahmed

It is interesting to note that while it is claimed that Islam offers a system of governance and a method of ``electing`` a head of state, there is no darn way way to get rid of such heads of state as the Khulafa-e-Aal-e-Uthman, or for for any others for that matter.

I wouldn`t say that it is some romanticized view of the middle east that puts blinkers on the on the eyes of the muslims of the sub-continent.

In the case of the khilafat movement, as also in the case of Yasser Arafat, and even closer to our times, the misnamed `jihadis` in Kashmir, and equally misnamed `mujahiddeen` in the Afghanistan of yesteryears, and again, Mulla Omar and his Taliban till very recently, it was the MASSIVE build up provided by the muslim, particularly urdu `press` and opportunistic political mendicants that gave all such characters and movements a larger than life image.

Siddiqua Haqnawaa

Siddiqua:

George Habash was (is? is he still alive?) a psychopathic killer who, unlike Arafat, has no redeeming qualities at all. I suppose, if pushed, I could come up with some for Arafat: the enduring symbol of Palestinians (at least for the West). For anyone who remembers Habash, it is as the leader of the PFLP, a truly murderous bunch of thugs; one of the many terrorist arms of Syrian intelligence.

Or are you going to argue that Habash is a true blue Palestinian nationalist fighting for his people?

BTW, why do we give a @#$%# about the Palestinians anyway? Why not stick with causes closer to home and more relevant for us? Arafat was pretty chummy with the Indians, who are no friends of ours. Shouldn`t the friend of my enemy be my enemy as well?

Tahmed:
You are correct about the Egyptians fighting extrememly well in prepared positions where the battle had been planned, Soviet style, rather meticulously. However, the IDF fights best in a fluid Wehrmacht-style situation. The Israeli armour, under Sharon, decided to bypass the Egyptians dug-in on the EAST bank of the Suez and strike directly for Cairo. Apparently the Egyptian GS was counting on the IDF battering itself against them on the East Bank. They were prepared for this and were willing to trade casualties with the IDF on a 3-4:1 ratio, knowing they could afford to sacrifice their fellahin cannon-fodder endlessly.

It never occured to them that Sharon, one of the world`s great panzer-fuehrer`s, would see the situation and its solution. No matter what you may think of him as a human being, he knew how to handle an armour division in combat. He crossed the Canal north of the Eqyptian position and headed straight for Cairo. It took the combined pressure of the US and the USSR to rein him in and prevent IDF tanks from entering Cairo (or more likely shelling it--who wants to get sucked into a street battle in a warren like Cairo?).

Can you imagine the Egyptian humiliation if the IDF had reached Cairo?

``Does international law allow a city to be totally destroyed and look as though an earthquake has struck it?`` asked Jabbar Hussein, 65.

``Is a human being in Falluja worth less than an animal at London Zoo? We urge everyone to come and see the suffering of Falluja and its people and the crimes the Americans are committing in the name of democracy and freedom.``

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HP #46 While agreeing with your description of Nasser, I think think you cross the line of reasonableness when you refer to 1973 as a fake war. The biggest tank battle after World War II was in fact fought in 1973, involving one armored division and one armored brigade on the Egyptian side. This was the first (and only) time since perhaps the time of the pharaohs that the egyptians fought courageously and lost 10,000 men. But they inflicted severe casualties on the israelis too (3000 killed), and broke the myth of the unbeatable israelis built upon the previous three arab-israeli wars. having restored arab pride, sadat was able to seek peace from a position of strength.

Also, I wonder if anyone has addressed one question: Why is it so hard for rulers in muslim countries to run for elections rather than hang on to power until death do them part? (arafat is just another pathetic example - he may have done a good job early on in rallying the palestinians, but the fact is that no man is a superman or indispensable. I think it indicates a slavish mentality among muslims that has resulted from centuries of absolute rulers that causes them to have this hero worship. The Indian leaders and people have demonstrated that they have moved beyond this stage of ``power to the strongest`` and no man is above the law.

btw, from all indications arafat is admired more by pakistanis than by palestinians themselves. This is not the first time muslims of the subcontinent have shown their ignorance of reality - the khilafat movement was the first example of how easily their romanticized view of the middle east takes them away from the reality of the situation.

I have got to hand it to the US Jewish lobby and the State of Israel. These guys are five steps ahead of anyone else. There used to be a time when the US Jews completely supported the Democrats. However, somewhere along the line, they realized the Republicans are rising and the Democrats are going down. That the USA is becoming more Christian and religious. Far before anyone else realized it.

So their pressure groups jumped ship so elegantly, that one can just watch in awe.

I don`t know if many people realize this, but the original neo-cons were all die-hard liberals and supporters of the Democratic party. Now they form the core of the Republican Party; especially in foreign policy.

``Who are the neoconservatives? The first generation were ex-liberals, socialists, and Trotskyites, boat-people from the McGovern revolution who rafted over to the GOP at the end of conservatism’s long march to power with Ronald Reagan in 1980.``
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html

Not only that, they now have as their ally, the strongest group in USA politics, the Christian Evangelists (+ new Evangelists like hamidm). How have they been able to recruit this group that consider Jews to the be murdereres of Christ?

Through a simple Biblican phrase:

``In Luke`s account of the ascension, the disciples ask Jesus, ``Lord, is this the time when you will restore the Kingdom to Israel?`` The question illustrates the early church`s fascination with Israel and its prophetic role at the end of history.....by the 18th century another model of eschatology emerged in England that emphasized the role of a reconstituted Israel in the end times....When Israel captured Jerusalem in the 1967 war; dispensationalists were certain that the end was near. L. Nelson Bell, Billy Graham`s father-in-law and editor of Christianity Today, wrote in July 1967: ``That for the first time in more than 2,000 years Jerusalem is now completely in the hands of the Jews gives the student of the Bible a thrill and a renewed faith in the accuracy and validity of the Bible.``
`` (http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=216)

So for Christ to show up again, and satisfy the Evangelicals, Israel has to be running the Holy Land. This is the view under which the foreign policy of the USA in the Middle East is going to be decided. This is the basis of the argument of Ralph Reed, the poster child of the Christian Right.

``The single strongest group for Israel in the United States, apart from Jews, is conservative Christians,`` declared Ralph Reed, co-chairman of Stand for Israel and former executive director of the Christian Coalition. He also noted that 80 percent of self-identified Republicans also favor military action against Baghdad.`` http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1010-02.htm

The US politics turn from Democratic to Republican, and the pro-Israel organizations read it better than anyone else. Quite amazing............

for Yasir Arafat:

sur daad nu daad dust dur dust-e Sharon....

It is extremely interesting to note that Yasser Arafat is being treated as the sole driving force of the Palestinian struggle.

One wonders who George Habash and Naif Hawatmeh were, if they ever existed?

Siddiqua Haqnawaa

wajahat - you wrote ``In the end Arafat failed, just like Quaid e Azam failed, just like Che failed just like all dreams fail, because the story is much more than these heroes, the narrative they start outlives them, and metamorphosises into something totally different.``

Thank you sir! Very well said. Indeed, in today`s ``results oriented`` society that we live in, it is hard to articulate the beauty and the resolve and the heroics of the journey. We judge others by what they achieve, and not by the years of blood, sweat and toil they put.

In the article that you wrote ``Ranchore Line ka farangi``, Kaleem would be vilified by these pseudo-intellectuals for having failed in everything. What good did memorizing Shakespeare do to his life? What good were his own writings, for in the end paan was being distributed in those papers.

But these pseudo-humans are too thick brained, and too brainwashed, and too feeble minded to know that the beauty of his life did not lie in his ending. The beauty of his life was in his heart warming struggles. The players of the story move on, but the story continues.