Forever Young

In our minds' eyes President Kennedy will always be a vigorous young man with a head of reddish-brown hair, even though he would be 90 by now, had he lived. Buddy Holly will always be a skinny kid with curly hair and big glasses. Marilyn Monroe will always be a luscious blonde.

These images are frozen forever in the publc mind because there was no time for them to be replaced by the visages of age. Many physicists today believe in the existence of "parallel universes" in which things turn out differently than in ours. (1) In some of these parallel universes, all the ill-fated people on the list below would be alive today. Imagine how they would look and sound at the ages they would have attained.

Name..............................................2007 Age (2)

John F Kennedy.......................................90
Ernie Kovacs.............................................88
Hank Williams..........................................85
Malcolm X..................................................82
Marilyn Monroe & Robert F Kennedy....81
Martin Luther King....................................79
Sam Cooke...................................................76
James Dean & Jayne Mansfield................74
Elvis Presley.................................................72
Roy Orbison..................................................71
Buddy Holly..................................................70
Sal Mineo & Lee H Oswald.........................68
John Lennon & Ricky Nelson.....................67
Cass Elliot, Ritchie Valens
& Otis Redding..............................................66
Sharon Tate and Jim Croce.........................64
Freddie Prinze...............................................53
John F Kennedy, Jr & Princess Diana.......46

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(1) "Parallel Universes" by Max Tegmark
in Scientific American, May, 2003.

(2) From Wikipedia Biography Section

Arafat's Heirs

Hamas gunmen in Gaza marked Yasser Arafat's Nov. 11 "yahrtzeit" by shooting over 90 members of the Fatah movement, killing at least 7. Fatah-backers had rallied in Gaza City flaunting mounted portraits of the late Palestine Authority Chairman as if to say
" We are Arafat's true heirs."
Hamas shot them as if to say "We are in power here now."

Often the death of a charismatic and unifying leader is followed by a power-struggle between two of his disciples.(1) But which of these two Palestinian groups is more fit to carry Arafat's mantle?

Arafat's Legacy

The United Nations proposed creation of a Palestinian state in 1947, but the land assigned to it was gobbled-up by Jordan (2) and Egypt. In 1959 Yasser Arafat and a few friends founded Fatah, dedicated to establishing such a state in the entire Palestine Mandate territory. Five years later, Arafat formed and led an "umbrella organization" composed of all Palestinian groups entitled the "Palestine Liberation Organization" or PLO. Since Israel had no "occupied territories" at that time, the land to be "liberated" was Israel itself.
At first the program of PLO was supported only by the Arab League, but after Israel took Gaza and the West Bank in the 1967 Six Day War, the concept of a Palestinian state gained increasing support throughout the world. It was the work of PLO, which included bombings and plane hi-jackings, that made the Palestinians major players in the Middle-East conflict in the eyes of the world.
After Hamas (a subsidiary of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood) ignited an uprising in Gaza and the West Bank, Arafat and PLO ostensibly made peace with Israel in 1993. In exchange, PLO was granted limited authority to govern the two Palestinian areas. Today the concept of a sovereign Palestinian state is accepted by the whole world, including the Government of Israel.
Yasser Arafat never groomed a successor. When pressured by the United States to appoint a prime minister, he choose Mahmoud Abbas, an academic with no charisma or following. After Arafat died on Nov. 11, 2004, Abbas (aka "Abu Mazen") became President of the Palestine Authority (PA).

Hamas = Fatah ?

No, for two reasons:

Islam: Arafat considered Christian Arabs (about 10% of the West Bank) an important part of PLO. Although a devout Muslim, Arafat attended church services at Christmas in Bethlehem as a sign of solidarity with the Christian population. Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, has no use for Christians or other infidels. If Hamas ever takes full power in the West Bank, Muslim law (Sharia) will be imposed, and Christians will be reduced to the status of "dhimmi", powerless residents.

The Peacemeal Process: By appearing to accept the existence of Israel, Arafat won control of most of the Palestinian population. In 2000 he was offered a State of Palestine on nearly all the land Israel seized in 1967, but refused the deal.
President Bush has arranged a Peace Conference in Annapolis, Maryland, for later this month to create a Palestinian state. Hamas will not be attending this conference, as the movement steadfastly refuses to accept Jewish sovereignty in any part of "Palestine". The continuous rocket-fire from Gaza is evidence that Hamas still wants to liberate all of Palestine by armed struggle.

West Bank: The Next Gaza?

The leaders of Hamas took control of Gaza from Fatah in June, 2007, by force . They could not have seized this power while Israel still held the territory, but took over easily after it was quit-claimed to the Palestine Authority. Had Hamas controlled the PA in 2005, Israel would not have withdrawn. Thus, Fatah-rule was an unavoidable transition phase between Israeli occupation and Hamas rule.

Perhaps Hamas sees the same opportunity presenting itself in the West Bank, following the same scenario. First, Hamas maintains its ideological purity by refusing to negotiate with Israel. Meanwhile, Israel cedes territory to the "moderate" Fatah government of the PA in the face of heavy US arm-twisting. Then, with the Israelis safely out of the way, Hamas could use its considerable political and military power to seize the West Bank.

But would Yasser Arafat approve such a coup?

I think he would love it!

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(1) Examples:
A. Russia, where Stalin and Trotsky claimed the mantle of Lenin.
B. China, where Mao ZeDong and Chiang Kai-Shek were both followers of President Sun Yat- Sen.
C. US, where two of Franklin Roosevelt's Vice Presidents (Henry Wallace and Harry Truman) ran against each other and others in 1948.

(2) Created by the British in 1922 as Transjordan, the name was changed to Jordan after the West Bank take-over. The name has stuck, even though the present boundaries are the same as they were before 1948.