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The Works Of The Prophet

"There is nobody immune from mistakes, starting from
me on down. Even prophets committed mistakes."
— Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat

S

o, at last we have it out in the open. The man
who has styled himself the leader of the
Palestinians for 40 years now ranks himself not
just as the founder of a nation-to-be, but also as a fig-
ure worthy of the Bible and Koran.
No wonder he cannot relinquish authority to his
own hand-picked prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, or to
Palestinian Legislative Council leaders who have been
trying to tell him that the corruption and inefficiency
must cease. That would be like Muhammad allowing
his caliphs to make the important decisions
without his divine authority — or Jesus
telling Peter to deliver the Sermon on the
Mount.
From his inspired viewpoint, Arafat does not have to
heed the mere mortals in his own legislature who are
telling him that he must end the graft that drains away
almost of the international aid intended for ordinary
citizens leading miserable lives under the intifada that
he started nearly four years ago. He doesn't have to pay
attention to the polling data showing that three out of
four Palestinians now recognize the corruption as very
widespread — because prophets do not need public
consent to chart the right course.
Why would a prophet, familiar with Muhammad's
autocratic ways and his use of military and intelligence
forces to keep his enemies in line 1,500 years ago, sur-
render any real control over the soldiers of Fatah just
because ordinary people tell him that he must surren-

Dry Bones "AND THEW

THE WEST WANTS
ISRAEL TO "TAKE
OUT" THE IRANIAN
NUCLEAR THREAT

der that power for the sake of a bet-
ter life for his people in the West
Bank and Gaza?
In an intriguing essay last week in
the Jerusalem Post, Arnold Ages,
emeritus professor of French
Language and Literature at the
University of Waterloo in Ontario,
proposes that the Arab world has
long been mesmerized by the lure of
hopeless causes and the leaders who
summon them to predictable failure.
Citing Gamel Abdul Nasser of Egypt
and Saddam Hussein of Iraq along
with Arafat, Ages notes
how each led his people to
futile campaigns that took
tens of thousands of the
lives of their followers and produced
no tangible gain. In each case, he
says, the leader survived because "the
allure of defeat has its own mystique
about it."
Perhaps, for a prophet, the loss of
more than 1,000 Palestinian lives in
the last four years alone — beyond
the nearly 1,000 lives lost in Israel —
is not defeat but a glorious step
along the way to Paradise. Arafat has
always had the ability to delude him-
self into thinking that he was something better than a
tyrant, a crook and a terrorist. The rest of the world is
catching on to what a sham he is. Perhaps, soon, his

EDITO RIAL

AND.

AND THEN I

THEY'LL CONDEMN
US FOR DOING
IT!

own people will put him out to pasture and make
him, at last, a prophet without honor in his own
country. 111

Something's Happening Here

W

e are told repeatedly by the talking
heads on TV that America is more
politically polarized than ever before.
Well, maybe. But 200 years ago this summer,
two small boats crossed the Hudson River to New
Jersey; and when they made the return trip,
Alexander Hamilton lay dying and Aaron Burr
was a ruined man. Hamilton, a_Federalist, had
been shot by Vice President Burr, a Democrat, in
a duel over nasty political insinuations.
Now that's what I call polarization.
We should also remember that when
Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected presi-
dent in 1860, Southern Democrats took their
states out of the Union. It's hard to get more
polarized than that.
It seems to me that a two-party system
inevitably leads to some degree of polarization. If
you choose to participate, you're either for one or
the other. If there was a period in which we had
kinder, gentler presidential campaigns, it must
have been before my time.
What is a new element, however, is the high

George Cantor's e mail address is
gcantor@thejewishnews.com

-

degree of paranoia in this campaign.
that much hard news with which to fill it.
Accusations of hidden agendas, ulterior
Instead, they do interviews, and the most
motives, illegal manipulation of the
outspoken, red-meat activists on both
process are routine.
sides are the ones who get air time.
President Bush's critics are convinced
Frequently, they are put on in direct
that U.S. forces are deliberately holding
opposition to one another so the viewing
back from capturing Osama bin-Laden
audience can be treated to their exchange
until this autumn to give the president
of shouts and bellows.
momentum down the stretch. Or that he
Then the commentators step up to the
GEO RGE
deliberately raised the security warning code CAN TOR
plate. James Carville savages conservatives
right after the Democratic convention to rob
as greed-driven bigots on CNN. Bill
Rea lity
John Kerry of his bounce.
O'Reilly, in his "no spin zone," spins
Ch eck
Bush partisans see an unholy conspiracy of
wildly against liberals on Fox News.
media and Democrats to slant news coverage
Michael Moore and Ann Coulter are
away from any of his positive achievements. Or
interviewed as if they were actual journalists
that Kerry is actually the French candidate (which
instead of partisan attack dogs.
is even worse than being the Manchurian
On and on and on, through every hour of the day.
Candidate, but tastes better).
Is it any wonder that those inclined to favor
Any day now I expect to hear that Bush has a
one candidate or the other become convinced
shoe fetish, and Teresa Heinz Kerry is secretly
that the opposition is to be feared. That they are
placing a curse on the president in all those fancy
not only wrong but malevolent. Not mistaken
foreign languages she speaks.
but deceitful. Not skeptical but disloyal. Not cau-
So why is this happening? I've got to think it is
tious but despotic.
the proliferation of cable news channels that is
Remember the Buffalo Springfield song from
mostly to blame. They have multiplied like amoe-
the 1960s: "Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it
ba since 2000.
will creep. It starts when you're always afraid."
These stations have a lot of time to fill and not
They didn't know the half. ❑

8/27

2004

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