Yasser Arafat Dead of Mystery Illness

Posted November 11, 2004, 12:59 p.m.

Yasser Arafat—President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and leader of the Fatah movement—has died in a Paris military hospital of a mystery illness. He was 75.

Arafat has been a prominent member of Palestinian causes for decades, and has come under criticism for his history of involvement with terrorist groups and continued tacit support of groups like the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (which attack Israeli civilians periodically). The United States and Israeli governments have refused to negotiate with the PNA until Arafat’s near-dictatorial role in that government was limited, and it is unclear what effect his death will have on the Arab/Israeli peace process or on governance within the fractured PNA. Arafat did not name a successor.

The Palestinian leader was airlifted to France nearly two weeks ago after his health suddenly deteriorated, and has been treated in Paris for an illness that has not yet been definitively identified. Reports have said variously that Arafat suffered from the flu, a stomach illness, gall stones, a blood platelet disorder, and/or a brain hemorrhage.

Arafat is survived by his wife, Suha Tawil, and their daughter Zahwa.

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

It is not money but the volume of goods and services which determines whether a country is poverty stricken or prosperous.

There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other.

Exactly the same technology can be used for good and for evil. It is as if there were a God who said to us, ‘I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It’s up to you.’

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

But if we successfully reduce gun murders without reducing the overall murder rate, that’s not really success. The murder victim doesn’t care whether he was killed with a gun, knife, hammer, car, poison, anvil, or blow-dart. Neither should we.

There is . . . a close bond and necessary relation between . . . freedom and productive industry. This proposition is generally true of all nations, but especially of democratic nations.

If you ‘don’t get anything out of church,’ you don’t understand the reason for going to church in the first place. We go to church to worship. Worship is not like entertainment: worship is not getting something but giving something.

I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.

There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.

We must strive to reach that simplicity that lies beyond sophistication.

Coexistence [with communism] is a contradiction of terms because it means trying to coexist with world conquest, which is impossible. One must resist or be conquered.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: ‘Is it true in and for itself?’

Why, you simple creatures, the weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire.

You know, Gina, Apple [Computer Inc.] is like a ship. That ship is loaded with treasure, but there’s a hole in the ship. And my job is to get everyone to row in the same direction.

A great memory does not make a philosopher, any more than a dictionary can be called grammar.

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new and express train of associations.

International trade is not a zero-sum contest. Both sides must gain or it would make no sense to continue trading.

Better a thousand times err on the side of over-readiness to fight, than to err on the side of tame submission to injury, or cold-blooded indifference to the misery of the oppressed.

The way to deal with worldly people is to frighten them by repeating their scandalous whisperings aloud.