Arafat is finally gone...

Link

So what does this all mean? I don't claim to have any real answers, but my suspicion is "not much." Arafat was certainly a polarizing figure who made some terrible decisions that were made out more out of concern for himself and less out of concern for his people. IMO, after his monumental failure at Camp David he was definitely a roadblock to any further progress.

However, it should be made clear that Arafat is far from the only guilty party in that whole mess... several iterations of Israeli leaders share quite a lot of that burden as well. In many difficult situtations it can be very easy to write-off the problem by dismissing all parties (this happens in our political system at home all the time). However, I truly feel that is the case here... for each injustice on the Israeli people promoted or tacitly endorsed by Arafat, there is an equal injustice that has been perpetrated on the Palestinians.

Blame aside, I think most folks agree that there is a window of opportunity here... I share that assessment. However, this is where my pessimism kicks in. If any real progress is to be made, it will have to have the involvement of the US and, at least in part, Europe. Not only has this administration shown that it gets failing grades in "Plays well with others," but their track record on this issue in particular has been horrid thus far. Furthermore, this is a time of turnover within the adminsitration... Powell is expected to leave his post, but any work on this situation will have to involve the state department, so the timing could certainly have been better.

One last note on Arafat: I do credit him with one thing, that is showing that the situation is not intractable (albeit for a very short time). His dealings with the moderate Rabin showed that progess could be made. If it had lasted, then Arafat truly would have deserved his Nobel Prize for Peace. (Side note: Conservatives love to deride his prize, but automatically revert to navel-gazing when you bring up the topic of Kissenger... mistakes are made from time to time, folks)

Update: Apparently the Palestinians have moved quickly to put Abbas at the head of things... positive development? In terms of not letting the situation linger, yes. In terms of the personnel, who knows? He wasn't strong enough to do anything the first time...

Update: The King of Jordan has an op-ed in the NY Times... it is a good read of what the situation is. Essentially he is saying to Bush is "You have a chance, this is part of the war on terror, what are you going to do?"

We shall see.