Arafat, US Elections and More

The deteriorating health and imminent death of Palestinian President Arafat would merely remove a red-herring used by Israel (and its patron the US government) to thwart International law.

Arafat will be remembered as one of the leaders of the Palestinian liberation movement and a symbol of Palestinian Nationalism. But Arafat also signed the Oslo accords, sellout agreements that avoided International law and human rights. The talk about revival of the road map would be equally useless since the so-called "road map to peace" written by Israeli lobbyists in the US government is a charade. In 2221 words it is also missing those four words: International Law and Human Rights.

The "Arafat is responsible" mantra was amusing considering that Arafat was imprisoned in a building and could not even use water without Israeli authorities letting the water flow while both he and Israel dutifully (and rightly) condemned suicide bombings. But he was a convenient distraction while Israel continued expanding Jewish-only colonies/settlements, confiscating more Palestinian land (Christian and Muslim), killing more Palestinian civilians (thousands in the past four years alone), and strangulating the remaining Palestinians in large Ghettos/Bantustans surrounded by walls and fences. When Arafat dies, we will still have five million Palestinian refugees and five billion dollars of our taxes per year enabling this charade to go on. Perhaps Israel will need to create another useful excuse for continuing its colonization activities.

As far as the US is concerned, the two main candidates supported war and competed to please the Israeli lobby in Washington. There were some differences worth noting and all people who voted knew them. But it would be a mistake for those who voted for Kerry to get depressed or those who voted for Bush to get elated. All Americans need to wake up to the very serious problems that this country faces and that need working on. Whether Kerry or Bush got elected, we already had 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed in this most recent war and 1.5 million killed by sanctions (most of them while Clinton was in office). We also have to deal with private debt of $2 trillion, government debt of $7 trillion and corporate debt ($?). We still have outsourcing and deteriorating health coverage (while spending more per capita on health than any other industrialized nation- all of them have some form of centralized healthcare). As always, work between election is where things change. Democracy is not about voting (especially when money determines outcome based on media hype and 10 second sound bites). While the situation is not similar, the predictable "election" of US appointee Karzai in Afghanistan did not bring it democracy or freedom. It is now a major producer of drugs and ravaged by poverty and iniquity. I pray that Bush (freed from the pressures of bidding for reelection) will break from the Neo-Cons (Zionist and non-Zionists) who are intent on giving America a role (and a fate) analogous to that of the Roman Empire.