>In large part because the image of Palestinians in the mind of
>America's necktie-wearing class is of the people who rolled people
>in wheelchairs into the ocean and started hijacking airplanes--thus
>leading to our current air travel ritual passages through the metal
>detectors and the x-ray machines. Wasn't the decision to take the
>Black September road (as opposed to, say, the Gandhi road) a
>decisive political error on Arafat's part? Is there any way it can
>be repaired?
It's not the Palestinians themselves who created this image - it's the branch of what you quaintly call the "necktie-wearing class" (no women in the class? no casual Fridays?) that scribbles for a living that created this image, loyally serving U.S. security interests, which have deemed the repressive force of Israel our friend and the rock-throwing youth our enemy. Who was it who displaced 800,000 Palestinians in 1948, and instituted 50 years of repression leaving little outlet of resistance.
By the way, Said has plenty of nasty things to say about Arafat and his comprador regime now.
Doug