Sunday November 14, 2004

GO RAMS!!

The Game: Rams v.s. Seattle
The Time: 12: 00 p.m. (Central)
The Line: Rams by 1

Friday November 12, 2004

I've taken a bit of a post-election hiatus and didn't intend to resume blogging until next week, but I didn't want to let the passing of the father of modern terrorism go by wihout some comment. There has been much fawning over the legendary Arafat by the press and by certain heads of state (Chirac comes to mind, so does Jimmy Carter). I cannot honestly see how some of these view the passing of Arafat with sadness. He was a terrorist. He was a murderer. He was a liar and a thief. I know it is considered untoward to speak ill of the dead, but Arafat in his Machiavellian mindset viewed these traits as necessary to pursue his chief goal: worldwide attention to the Palestinian cause and the elimination of the State of Israel. Jeff Jacoby's recent article in the Boston Globe stands apart from much of the MSM coverage. In his column Arafat the Monster, he points out the reluctance of the fawning media reports to focus on the thousands who died because of Arafat:

...Perhaps his signal contribution to the practice of political terror was the introduction of warfare against children. On one black date in May 1974, three PLO terrorists slipped from Lebanon into the northern Israeli town of Ma'alot. They murdered two parents and a child whom they found at home, then seized a local school, taking more than 100 boys and girls hostage and threatening to kill them unless a number of imprisoned terrorists were released. When Israeli troops attempted a rescue, the terrorists exploded hand grenades and opened fire on the students. By the time the horror ended, 25 people were dead; 21 of them were children.

Thirty years later, no one speaks of Ma'alot anymore. The dead children have been forgotten. Everyone knows Arafat's name, but who ever recalls the names of his victims?

We'd also do well to remember some of the American officials that Arafat killed. No, I will not mourn Arafat's passing. He was a brutal killer, but this is where Jacoby steps over the line:

In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his soul."

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil -- as indeed Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize -- but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity.

As a Christian, I understand Mr. Bush's sentiments. In a better world, more would share that sentiment. We should seriously rethink our "I hope he rots in hell" attitude. Just yesterday, a woman from my church said, "I hope that Arafat came to know Jesus Christ before he died". That really struck me. The Great Commission instructs all believers to spread the Gospel so that all may be saved. We do this out of obedience and Christian love. In Yassir's case, this would an extreme example of "love the sinner, but hate the sin". If we can wrap our minds around that concept in his case, how much easier will it be to show compassion and forgiveness to others and pray for their salvation. By the way, this woman from my church also expressed the same hope for Saddam Hussein--and she bears personal pain and injury from his evil. Just something to think about

But Arafat still was a murdering, lying, thieving terrorist.