Belmont Club has a superb post about the impending death of Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat. Speaking of the period after Arafat dies, he writes:"Then the real weakness of the position, the absence of stable Palestinian institutions, will soon manifest itself with a vengeance. Once internecine struggle breaks out each faction will call for international backers in a kind of bizarre, winner-take-all casino game where human lives are chips. The prospect of striking a deal with the eventual survivor is called 'finding a partner for peace'. "
The scene sounds like a strange mixture of the Soviet Politburo at Lenin's deathbed and Don Corleone's hospital stay in 'The Godfather'. All the while the struggling successors manage to get by with accomodations at the Hotel Intercontinental in Paris, the now-chubby ex-pat trophy wife (no Mama Corleone for Yasser!) has to interrupt her Parisian shopping and social routines to attend Sugar Daddy's deathbed, and Kofi Annan's UN picks up the tab for all these thugs.
Kudos to the 'international community' and the UN for creating a scene more bizarre than American TV or films could ever conceive in their wildest imagination. I hope Tom Wolfe is in Paris taking notes for his next book.
Article comments
1 - Harry Forbes
UPDATE with some candor from the Jerusalem Post: