* The Toronto Star reports that conspiracy theories regarding the causes of Yasser Arafat’s death have taken on a life of their own. Even if Arafat’s medical details are ever released to the public, it may be too little and too late to combat rumors that the U.S. gave Israel a green light to poison the PA chairman:
“Arafat will join JFK as the subject of the all-time great conspiracy theories. Every Palestinian wants to see him as a hero; they expected him to be martyred,” said Mohammed Yaghi, executive director of the Palestinian Center for Mass Communication, a Ramallah-based think-tank.
“So this fits him. It provides the heroic end for a man who was always a target for Israelis. And even if Israel didn’t kill him, they wanted to kill him. That is enough.”
* Commentary in the Washington Post regarding the lack of change in the ossifying world of Arab leadership — the only term limit is an autocrat’s death:
Just as happens to any system that lacks a way to reinvigorate itself with competition, new ideas and younger blood, the result is predictable: corruption grows, innovation wanes and progress halts. Economic monopolies get sluggish and unresponsive, and so do political ones.
Even the death of a leader can fail to rattle the aging bones of these political systems — and that’s why it would be dangerous to hope for too much from Arafat’s successor, whoever he might be. Old leaders die hard, but old habits die harder.
* Newsweek vividly describes how Iraqi insurgents systematically break all rules of warfare, and score propaganda points when the US errs. A classic case of Western values being used against Westerners:
For the insurgents, Iraq has become a war without rules, and yet the militants also score big propaganda victories every time Americans break their own codes of warfare. In the battle for Fallujah the insurgents feigned surrender, waving white flags to approach within killing range of U.S. Marines and Iraqi government forces. They positioned their fighters in mosques, medical centers and civilian neighborhoods. They booby-trapped their fallen comrades’ corpses and shot at crews trying to collect the Muslim dead. Practically every taboo has been discarded. Women, children and international relief groups have become deliberate targets. Ambulances are used to smuggle weapons. Torture of hostages has become a public spectacle, with videos passed out like press kits to TV stations, and posted on the Internet when the Arabic channels balk at showing such atrocities.
* In the Washington Times, a critique of the Israeli Goliath vs. Palestinian David media spin.
