Wake Up, Sleepy Head--Rub Your Eyes, Get Out of Bed

Yasir Arafat is finally dead, buried by a tide of angry, masked, gun-toting maniacs in Ramallah. Those Palestinians really know how to throw a funeral, no?

But then, maybe you'd be a little upset, too, if your peoples' Moses wandered for 40 years in the desert, made it to The Promised Land, and then--because he got more than a little high on all the fame of being a revolutionary wanderer--refused any reasonable deal, continued to sanction and sponsor terrorism, and ultimately decided to set up a corrupt camp for himself, virtually declaring: "Let my people go to hell!"

Not like any Palestinian would see it this way. But then, they are probably as blinded by celebrity as so many eulogy-writers in the American press, who rightfully admire Arafat's success in focusing world attention the Palestinian cause while shamefully understating or ignoring his methods.

Except for folks like Thomas Friedman in the NY Times (registration needed--but just go to bugmenot) and this Boston Globe Op-Ed by Jeff Jacoby that spells things out nicely.