ABC jumped to a taped piece with Sawyer narrating over matching historic video: "He lived the bulk of his days on earth as a man without a country. His had been stolen, he insisted, stolen by those that denied Palestinians a place of their own. And it was to that place that he devoted most of a remarkable life, taking him from squalid guerilla camps to the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
"Born in Egypt to Palestinian parents, Arafat was not quite 20 when Israel was founded, sending Palestinians by the thousands into exile as refugees. Before he was 30 he had formed al-Fattah, the first Palestinian guerilla unit to launch an attack on Israel. As the new chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the PLO, he settled in Jordan, but was forced to keep moving. After Jordan, to Lebanon, always denying any connection with terrorism, but inevitably identified with every aspect of Palestinian violence. Eventually Israelis and Palestinians began to talk, at first in secret, and then this historic White House handshake in 1993: Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Rabin sealing an agreement for a Palestinian authority in the Gaza strip and in Jericho....[2000 clip of Sawyer with Arafat]....Who he was and what he was depend on perspective. For most Israelis, many Jews, he was a bloody terrorist and nothing more. Yet elsewhere in the world, even among Arabs who questioned his leadership, he was treated as a hero, freedom fighter, revolutionary. A diminutive man who became a larger than life symbol of the Palestinian dream."
Charles Gibson turned to guest George Mitchell. Gibson's first question: "This man was an enigma to some extent. I'm curious what you think we lost last night. Did we lose someone who at his core was still a terrorist or did we lose someone who at his core was a peacemaker?" Mitchell saw a "mixed legacy."
-- CBS's Early Show. Rene Syler declared his terrorism as a fact: "First though, we want to get right to our top story and that is the death of Yasser Arafat. For nearly 40 years he was the face of the Palestinian movement and an enemy of Israel. A master terrorist who later won a Nobel Peace Prize. Arafat will be buried in his West Bank headquarters. CBS News correspondent David Hawkins is live in Ramallah with more. David, good morning."
Hawkins, however, delivered some moral equivalence: "Good morning, Rene. Palestinians woke up today to the news that the only leader most of them have ever known died overnight in a French military hospital from a still undisclosed illness. To some he was the father of the Palestinian cause, to others he was the face of Palestinian terrorism."
Hawkins, the MRC's Brian Boyd observed, proceeded to recount some of Arafat's terrorist record before he concluded: "Although he never achieved his dream of founding an independent Palestinian state, Yasser Arafat died as he lived -- combining wily diplomacy and violence to the very end."
An hour later Harry Smith announced: "A military funeral for Yasser Arafat will be held tomorrow in Cairo. The 75 year old Palestinian leader died early Thursday at a hospital in France. Arafat was a terrorist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. Today, Palestinians took to the streets to mourn. Israeli leaders call his death a turning point in the Middle East."
