Well, if he's not dead at least he's buried.
France, as is her wont, laid it on thick:
ARAFAT'S SOLEMN FINAL VOYAGE HOME
France sent Yasser Arafat on his final voyage home Thursday, ceremoniously loading the body of the late Palestinian leader onto a flight to Cairo and ultimately burial at his West Bank headquarters.Arafat's crying widow Suha [High-maintenance Suha is sobbing all the way to the bank. Boo HOO hoo hoo.] and French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin led dignitaries in a short and solemn ceremony at the Villacoublay airport as the body was carried to the jet by a French honour guard while the Palestinian and French anthems were played.
President Jacques Chirac, who personally took the decision to accept Arafat on October 29 after the Palestinian leader fell gravely ill at his Ramallah compound, visited the hospital before the body was moved.
"I came to bow before president Yasser Arafat and pay him a final homage," Chirac told journalists after his 25-minute visit.
[All emphases added.]
Nice. You can bet this wasn't part of Jack's "hommage". This is so amazingly cloying, yes, even for Jack. A new French low.
We have asked elsewhere, but it is a question worth the asking, just what sort of homage took Jack 25 minutes to compose? Arafat was dead. As a representative of the Republic, we doubt secular Jack was offering prayers for refrigeria aeterna. Imagine Jack's protracted meditations once justice catches up to couch buddy Saddam. Better book a full 45 minutes.
It requires no prodigious grasp of history to recall Mr. Arafat was an impenitent career terrorist. To his dying day -- all several of them -- he was the organizing principle for Palestinian terrorism. And terrorism was till his dying day -- all several of them -- the little chairman's over-played trump.
Just how hopeless is the Palestinian cause?
One only has to think on Mr. Arafat being its acknowledged embodiment to weep for the hapless refugees who have been conned into believing themselves a footless nation.
Feel the love. Yeah.
