I was on the BBC World Service last night, the “News Hour with Owen Bennett Jones.”
First, they interviewed a Jordanian doctor who had treated Arafat over the years. He suggested that Arafat may have died of poisoning. He did not say who might have done it but my guess is most of those listening – and almost all those mourning and demonstrating today — will conclude that it was the Mossad or the CIA or the Elders of Zion or some such group.
I argued that Arafat’s widow and Palestinian leaders should insist that Arafat’s French doctors reveal what caused his death, reveal what they wrote on his death certificate (I assume there is one), reveal whether there was an autopsy and, if there was one, reveal the results, if there wasn’t one, explain why not.
Next I was on with Abdel Bari-Atwan, editor of al-Quds, a London-based Arabic newspaper.
His talking points were that Arafat was a man of peace (hadn’t his award of the Nobel Peace Prize established that?), that he was a democratically elected leader (Jimmy Carter himself said Arafat won in a free and fair election in 1996!), that he had accepted the existence of Israel (he said so, many times!).
Bari-Atwan also said that the Americans had killed 100,000 innocent Iraqis – and that was based on the Lancet, a prestigious journal. (He added that those fighting the Americans were a nationalist “resistance,” that Zarqawi was merely helping them, much as the French helped George Washington against the British.)
But my point is this: Count above the many ways the Left assists the propaganda efforts of even the most vicious American terrorists.