Informed observers have known for decades that Arafat was nothing more than a brutal dictator. More and more, the truth has come out about his darker (satanic?) side. Even the left-leaning BBC exposed Arafat’s funding of terrorism. It is both politics and the Internet that have changed people’s attitudes about the "Palestinian/Israeli conflict."

The blogsphere has empowered individuals by allowing them to easily find alternative news and commentary. Perhaps most importantly, blogs have become real-time scrutinizers of mainstream media sources: Can you spell “CBS,” whose so-called breaking news about President Bush’s Vietnam record was exposed as a fraud the day it was released. Blogs like IsraPundit, Little Green Footballs, AndrewSullivan.com, and even little ‘ol netwmd.com have been relentless in exposing Arafat’s Palestinian “cause” (read: corrupt, violent, dictatorship). Politics has also played a part.

President Bush refused to ever meet with King Terror-Master Arafat, maintaining that he was tainted by terrorism (boy, is that an understatement). Whether Arafat supporters like it or not, he/she who holds the American presidency is the gatekeeper to the Palestinian/Israeli peace process. Europe has made itself ineffective, and has proven itself ineffective. Israeli Prime Minister Sharon similarly snubbed Arafat, and has been refreshingly brutal in dealing with Palestinian terrorists. Sharon has been strongly backed by Bush both implicitly (in realpolitik, more important) and explicitly (in diplomacy, less important). Israel’s underlying strengths, freedom and capitalism, make it much more than a match for any of its pipsqueak Arab neighbors. Now Palestinians have to ruminate over four more years of Bush and an Israeli prime minister backed the majority of Israeli voters. Things have changed.

While reviewing various “mainstream” news sources about Yasser Arafat and his legacy, I was surprised to find that some of the New York Times and Washington Post’s coverage was critical of him – not the usual politically correct drivel.

Here’s the Post from today’s edition:

[Arafat] was willing to tolerate and embrace bloody acts of terror that made him an international pariah…

By dint of ruthless violence often directed at civilians…

But his transformation was ultimately incomplete, and in U.S.-brokered negotiations at Camp David and in the Middle East in 2000 he was unwilling or unable to close a deal with Israel to put an end to the two sides' century-long conflict. Many concluded that Arafat had never truly reconciled himself to Israel's existence or the permanent exile of Palestinian refugees expelled from their ancestral homes by Israel. Under his rule, the Palestinian Authority was said by many to be riddled with corruption. When a bloody new Palestinian insurrection erupted in September 2000 -- if not led by Arafat then with his acquiescence -- he became a pariah to Israel and the United States.

From the Times of November 7:

Three years later, Prime Minister Sharon, strengthened by robust backing from Mr. Bush, has suppressed Palestinian violence, decimated the leadership of the militant group Hamas, and demonstrated that the military road leads nowhere for the Palestinians. Even before Mr. Arafat collapsed, his rule had done so, prompting a growing internal debate on Palestinian governance and leadership.

Of course, these articles display some of the usual “evenhandedness” – e.g., “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter." But they do belie a grudging acceptance of the reality of the “Palestinian/Israeli;” that it is in fact a struggle between a beachhead of democracy (Israel) versus terrorist chaos (the Palestinian territories).

By the way, Arafat is dead and Israel lives.