> never said arafat was popular among palestinians. on the contrary, they
> don't trust him and haven't for years--rightly so, imo--despite/because
> of the way he has until recently been propped up by US and even israeli
> leadership.
>
> the only point i was making was that this article manages to draw from a
> perfectly statistically accurate observation entirely the wrong
> conclusion: namely, that the israeli offensive was successful in the
> sense of putting a damper on arafat and palestinian support for suicide
> bombings, hamas, the plo, etc. etc. it seems to me that the timing of
> the article coincides suspiciously conveniently with dubya's BS speech
> this afternoon . . .
>
> j
>
> On Monday, June 24, 2002, at 07:39 PM, Cian wrote:
>
> > Arafat's popularity did go down though after the
> > israelis let him out of the bunker. Palestinians
> > (probably rightly) thought he had done a deal with the
> > Israelis. Then he compounded that by refusing to go to
> > see one of the towns after the Israeli attack (I'm
> > tired, so can't remember the name).
> >
> > I agree the conclusions drawn by the article are
> > dubious, but I don't think Arafat is particularly
> > popular with the Palestinians. Ironically the only
> > thing he has going for him is that Sharon is so
> > determined to get rid of him.
> >
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>
>