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You Only Get One Guess
Posted by Stephen Green  ·  21 April 2004

The Christian Science Monitor profiles Yasser Arafat, and sums up his career like so:

In a tumultuous 40-year odyssey, Arafat has gone from armed revolutionary steeped in a violent struggle against Israel; to found Fatah, a militantly nationalist Palestinian organization, in the early 1960s; to peacemaker and 1994 Nobel Prizewinner; to the first elected Palestinian president; and now, to semisidelined leader.

Question: What word did they leave out of his bio?

If you didn't answer "terrorist," you owe me a dollar.

But there's more.

The CSM says Arafat "has gone from armed struggle," implying he no longer is a leader of soldiers and terrorists.

They mention his Nobel Peace Prize, without mentioning he rejected Israel's generous peace offer in 2000, in order to have an excuse to start a new intifada.

They praise him as Palestine's first elected president, but fail to say anything about how he cancelled plans to let the people vote for -- or agaist -- him a second time.

They call him a "semisidelined" leader, without revealing that Fatah still sends out suicide bombers on his command.

The CSM doesn't sound very fair and balanced. It sounds like it's on the other side.


UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein found the same story, but had a lot more fun with it than I did. (Note to self: drop the anger more often and just have some fun.)

Comments

"Hater of Freedom" is three words.

Posted by: Gavin E Buffaloe at April 21, 2004 04:29 PM

But 'asshole' is just one, too.

Ok, perhaps I shouldn't drink wine with dinner (a very nice Merlot) and then surf blogs.

Posted by: Peter at April 21, 2004 04:37 PM

They're going to leave it out of his obituary too, but I think I'll be able to handle that.

I read that Spielberg is going to make a film about the 72 Munich olympics. Maybe that will refresh some people's memories of what his 'odyssey' comprised.

Posted by: David at April 21, 2004 04:59 PM

I wonder: did that word show up in any of Menachem Begin's obits?

Posted by: t at April 21, 2004 05:02 PM

how about

murderer
terrorist
american killer

Posted by: zeluna at April 21, 2004 05:52 PM

Now, Vodka. I'm surprised at you.

We shouldn't focus on the anti-Semitic . . ., er, ahem, the *semantics* of this profile by our dear friends over at CSM.

We all know that terrorists don't kill people.

Guns kill people.
And bombs.
And knives.
And . . .

Posted by: jtj at April 21, 2004 06:28 PM

I was thinking of "next target."

Posted by: Brian at April 21, 2004 06:32 PM

I was thinking of "next target."

Posted by: Brian at April 21, 2004 06:32 PM

Cowbell?

Posted by: TJ at April 21, 2004 06:34 PM

Totally, totally wrong jtj, guns and bombs do not kill people. Bullets and shrapnel kill people.


Anyway, "evil" is one word.

Posted by: Robin Goodfellow at April 21, 2004 06:55 PM

Hellfire missiles kill people too. Arafat will figure that out right before they scrape him into a plastic bag.

"Millionaire" could be a good word...he's embezzled millions from UN aid to the Palestinians.

"Coward" might be a good one too. Does it take a lot of courage to order the murder of kids while yours live safely overseas? Or send bombers to their deaths while he counts the zeros in his bank account?

But if we're lucky, we'll soon be using words like "goo", "pieces-parts", and "nuggets".

Posted by: Mike M at April 21, 2004 09:03 PM

camel-jockey?

towelhead?

sand...?

All these are pretty funny. LOL Calling names doesn't solve the problem though.

These people are different than us. Let's get that straight from the outset. It's not right to demean them by calling them evil or "Haters of Freedom."

Is Arafat evil? Is a kettle calling a pot black? Yes, he's evil. No question. However, the Palestinian people are not evil. Many of them are misguided homocide bombers, but there are good ones too.

I took a cab ride the other day with one of them driving and I didn't feel threatened at all. I was extra careful to make sure he didn't make any strange turns, and he didn't of course as I'm still here which is why I'm typing to you now. There are decent hard working Middle Easterners. We just have to look out for them.

Arafat is not one of them.

It's good Bush has not fallen into the Arafat trap. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice and won't get fooled again. Arafat and his chum Clinton won't fool us again.

Posted by: Creighton Lyer at April 22, 2004 04:36 AM

The one they really left out, the one everyone leaves off of his resume, is the Jordanian civil war in '72 IIRC. That's why the Palestinieans got pushed out into where they've been stuck every since, because they lost a civil war, and then the Arabs lost yet ANOTHER general war with the Israeli's right on it's heels.

They just never tell you that very often. NONE of it is Israels fault. Ye gods HOW many wars has FatHead lost now? Depends how you count it I guess....

Posted by: David Mercer at April 22, 2004 05:44 AM

Bloody Fucking Butcher?
Oh, that's three...

Posted by: ricky at April 22, 2004 05:58 AM

Didn't he have something to do with the 1972 Munich Olympics too? Apparently today Arafat has kicked out some terrorists, er, militants, from his compound. Ya'd think he doesn't want to end up with a missile between his eyes.

Posted by: Robert at April 22, 2004 07:11 AM

Ariel Sharon called Arabs "bugs," and that's just one word.

Posted by: Gavin E Buffaloe at April 22, 2004 07:34 AM

The next sentence in the article calls him a terrorist.

Posted by: Dan at MDA at April 22, 2004 07:36 AM

No it doesn't. It says someone else thinks he's a terrorist.

Posted by: Jim at April 23, 2004 08:06 AM

Good catch, Jim

Posted by: old maltese at April 24, 2004 12:31 PM

I hate Arafat. I hate his big nose more than anything...and that kitchen towel he wears on his head.

Sharon is right to back off his claim to not harm Arafat.

I wish Israel would just go after the evil homocide bombers with everthing they got (ask Vinunu :). Does anyone know if Palestine has any oil and if so, how long would it take before we could go back in there and drill for oil after a nuclear attack? That'd be the kicker in any war plans Israel would draw up.

Posted by: Creighton Lyer at April 25, 2004 02:30 PM



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