Originally posted by Muckmaw1
Here's a question to ponder....
Would you let Yasser Arafat give you a shot in the pail if doing so would guarantee peace in the middle east forever?
These TOOLS have already got on their collective knees for him.
Many network journalists on Thursday refused to condemn Yasser Arafat as a "terrorist," ..view of him as nothing more than how his enemies and Israelis saw him as they gave equal weight to those who saw him as a hero.
ABC's Diane Sawyer best encapsulated the media myopia: "There may not be any other man in history who better embodies the saying that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
In the evening, World News Tonight anchor Charles Gibson referred to how "some view his passing as the loss of a great leader, the only one modern-day Palestinians have known. Others see his death as one more terrorist gone."
NBC anchor Tom Brokaw touted how "to his followers, he was the shrewd military and political leader of their cause against the Israelis. To the Israelis, Arafat was the chief terrorist."
CBS's Mark Phillips described two Arafats: "He was a freedom fighter, who in his ever-present military uniform and kafiyah, was the champion of his down-trodden people. He was a terrorist whose chosen tactics left a trail of innocent blood."
On Good Morning America, Sawyer concluded her profile of Arafat: "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."
Her co-host, Charles Gibson, then claimed that Arafat "was an enigma to some extent." Gibson asked George Mitchell: "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?"
Brian Williams, the soon-to-be-anchor of the NBC Nightly News, lightly compared the Israeli/Palestinian battle to the Red state/Blue state split in the U.S. On MSNBC's Imus In the Morning on Thursday, Don Imus asked Williams: "Was he a beloved figure within the Palestinian population? How exactly did they view him?" Williams replied, on camera, from Ramallah: "Oh, absolutely. You know, it goes right up, it's like in the last conversation you and I had was how the Red states and the Blue states don't want to talk to each other and it's a Venus-Mars thing. This goes right up to the 1967 Green Line, in effect. He is called 'father' by most Palestinians of two generations. He is called a murderer and a terrorist by so many Israelis. Now, we'll see how history treats him, but really, before Yasser Arafat, there were no Palestinians, they were called 'refugees,' and he gave a definition to a nation, to a community."
"Nation"? Arafat made sure it never became one.
CBS's Early Show, however, stated as a fact that Arafat was a terrorist even as the CBS hosts noted his peace prize. Renee Syler described him as "a master terrorist who later won a Nobel Peace Prize." An hour later, Harry Smith called Arafat "a terrorist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994."
A further rundown of how the Thursday, November 11 broadcast network morning and evening shows described Arafat:
-- World News Tonight. Anchor Charles Gibson, filling in for Peter Jennings who was on his way to Ramallah, opened:
"A giant question mark now hangs over that region of the world. Yasser Arafat died last night. Some, thinking hopefully, see his death as a new opportunity for peace. Others worry a vacuum of leadership on the Palestinian side may only bring more violence. Some view his passing as the loss of a great leader, the only one modern-day Palestinians have known. Others see his death as one more terrorist gone. Arafat's body has been returned to the Middle East for a funeral in one location, burial in another."
After a piece from David Wright, Jon Donvan profiled Arafat and blamed the assassination of Rabin, not Arafat's rejection of a Palestinian state offered in 2000, for the lack of a Palestinian nation: "The image of Yasser Arafat swung to extremes. To some, especially his own people, he was a freedom fighter. He put them on the map. He gave every day of his life to the cause. When he told the UN in 1974 don't let the olive branch fall from my hand Palestinians felt, finally, the world was hearing Arafat, and them. His renown was their dignity. But Arafat was also wearing a gun belt that day. And that was the other extreme. Under his watch, Palestinian terrorism hit full stride in the '70s. The label 'terrorist' stuck. As one Israeli leader, Yitzhak Rabin, put it in the 1980s:"
Rabin: "Mr. Arafat is one of the greatest liars on earth."
Donvan: "And yet Rabin would come to shake Arafat's hand in the 1990s because by then Arafat had turned peacemaker."
Arafat: "As I told you, this is my destiny."
Donvan: "By this time he'd renounced violence, recognized Israel's right to exist, agreed to a deal designed to lead to a Palestinian state. It never came to be. A Jewish extremist gunned down Rabin. Arafat paid condolences in person."
Arafat: "I am very sad and very shocked."
Donvan, video of Barak, Clinton and Arafat Camp David: "But efforts to keep the peace process going -- some brokered by Bill Clinton in person -- slowly fell apart."
Arafat's rejection equals just "fell apart"?
-- CBS Evening News. Mark Phillips: "There are as many conflicting versions of Yasser Arafat's birthplace as there are opinions about the man. He was a freedom fighter, who in his ever-present military uniform and kafiyah, was the champion of his down-trodden people. He was a terrorist whose chosen tactics left a trail of innocent blood. He may have embodied the aspirations of the Palestinian people, but by the end, imprisoned in his Ramallah compound, he had become disconnected from his people -- the nominal head of a Palestinian authority known more for cronyism and corruption than for any efficient pursuit of the Palestinian cause."
Phillips at least ran through Arafat's murderous record: "Yasser Arafat's battle in support of that cause had been nothing but consistent, too consistent his critics say. From his formation of the militant fatah wing of the PLO in the 1950s to the present, he had inevitably fallen back on the violent option. From airplane hijackings, to the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics to his losing battles with first the Jordanian then the Israeli military, the PLO became the template for modern terrorism. When he famously appeared at the UN in 1974 to offer, he said, the olive branch in one hand or the gun in the other, it was the gun he chose time after time.
"Faced with stagnation in movement toward Palestinian statehood, he sanctioned the first Intifida. Even after he had shared the Nobel Peace Prize with his sworn Israeli enemies following his official renunciation of terrorism, when the potential country he was being offered was something less than he felt Palestinians could or would accept, he sanctioned the second Intifida, and couldn't, or wouldn't, rein in the suicide bombers who terrorized Israel's cities. The Israelis dismissed him as an unreliable partner and with America's help isolated him. He died with his dream unfulfilled and left behind the worst possible legacy in the Middle Eastern tinderbox -- a political vacuum."
-- NBC Nightly News. Tom Brokaw began: "Good evening. Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader who for so many years seemed to be so indestructible and so much the obstacle to peace in the Middle East is now returning to that embattled region for the final time, for his funeral, burial, and the everlasting question: Is there now new hope? The body of the flamboyant and controversial leader of the Palestinian cause is in Cairo tonight, where the funeral will be held before burial in Ramallah in the West Bank. It's been a long, troubled journey.
"Arafat's life with the Palestinian cause began in earnest when he was 30 in the late '50S. By 1968, he was head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the PLO, a dedicated militant who was always in uniform. To his followers, he was the shrewd military and political leader of their cause against the Israelis. To the Israelis, Arafat was the chief terrorist.
But he was indestructible, and a force to be reckoned with, and so it came to pass, he stood on the south lawn of the White House, recognizing Israel and shaking hands with Yitzhak Rabin, an old adversary. Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Arafat, shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. But for Arafat, no peace plan would ever be good enough. The last decade of his life was marked by dozens of Palestinian suicide bombings and dozens of fights with the Israeli army. Arafat will be buried in his Ramallah compound. It's on Palestinian territory in the would-be state this Palestinian survivor failed to achieve."
-- ABC's Good Morning America. The MRC's Jessica Anderson noticed how Diane Sawyer paid tribute to Arafat: "President Bush issued a statement about Yasser Arafat's death, a careful statement, which said a significant moment in Palestinian history, careful because Arafat surely was one of most controversial figures in the world. There may not be any other man in history who better embodies the saying that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. So we're going to take a closer look now at the man called 'father' by the Palestinians; he was synonymous with their struggle."
