Well a year later almost to the day I cried for days while I searched out missing family and friends all the while bearing witness.
With Arafat's death, I can't help but feel that the whole process will begin again, I am filled with hopes and fears.
I would like this to be a thread to post related articles and to discuss the impact of subsequent events. Since Religion sits at the core of this I am very interested in the points of view of DC&R forum members.
Article
"Arab leaders, by the end, came to think of him as an inconvenience, an obstacle to the political process," said Radwan Abdullah, a Jordanian political analyst. "I don't think many people will shed many tears. More people will see this as a chance to give the peace process a new start."
snipp..
If Arafat's heirs fall to squabbling among themselves, "things are going to look bad, because this is what strengthens the Islamists," he said. "To the people on the streets there has to be an alternative, and if the secularists can't deliver, then they turn to religion."
snipp...
Yet the region's sense of identity remains inextricably tied to the Palestinian cause, and that will continue regardless of what happens after Arafat's death. Arabic satellite TV channels beam round-the-clock footage of Israeli violence against Palestinians into Arab living rooms. The radical clerics recruiting in the mosques and on the Internet promise to recover Jerusalem, not for the Palestinians but for a new Islamic caliphate that will span the entire Muslim world.
"This is a very important moment. Either you make out of it a window of opportunity for peace and obstruct the growth of this jihadi trend or you add fuel to the flames," said Adnan Abu Odeh, a former Jordanian Cabinet minister
Although Arafat's passing may remove an obstacle to negotiations, it is also up to the Israelis and the Americans to seize the moment and present Palestinians viable options for statehood, he said. There is still little grass-roots support for peace with Israel across the region, and there is no reason to assume a new generation of Palestinian leaders will find it any easier than Arafat to strike a compromise, he warned.
