I'll Take Door Number Three

Yasser Arafat--mourned or scorned? Consider these three assessments:

Former President Jimmy Carter:

Yasser Arafat's death marks the end of an era and will no doubt be painfully felt by Palestinians throughout the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. He was the father of the modern Palestinian nationalist movement. A powerful human symbol and forceful advocate, Palestinians united behind him in their pursuit of a homeland.

NRO's Jonah Goldberg:

Obviously, my remorse knows bounds. My sadness has a bottom. Words are more than adequate to express my grief.

He was a gangster and a terrorist, as I'm sure we'll hear countless times here and elsewhere in the days to come.

Nothing wrong with all of that. The world is a better place without that carbunkle on humanity and it is fine to say so.

Max Boot, in today's LA Times:

It is considered bad form to speak ill of the dead, but I will make an exception for Yasser Arafat, the pathetic embodiment of all that went wrong in the Third World after the demise of the European empires.

I agree with Meryl Yourish: I won't miss him. I hope Arafat's Swiss bank accounts are discovered, confiscated and distrubuted to survivors of his suicide bombers.

More:

Roger Simon:

The Syrian Defense Minister called Arafat "the son of sixty thousand whores," but Jimmy Carter called him "a powerful human symbol and forceful advocate" for a Palestinian homeland. Well, great minds can differ.

And Kevin Libin of Canada's Western Standard offers this contrast:

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin on Arafat's death: "Chairman Arafat personified the Palestinian people's struggle to see their right to self-determination realized. Canada calls on Palestinians, and all peoples of the Middle East, to reflect on the tremendous cost of conflict, and, building on the legacy of their leaders and the guidance of their governments, to renew their commitment to peace."

Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Arafat's death: "I think history will judge him very harshly for not having seized the opportunity in the year 2000 to embrace the offer that was very courageously made by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barack [sic], which involved the Israelis agreeing to 90 per cent of what the Palestinians had wanted."

(via Instapundit, twice)