Arafat survives after 2004

So, WI Yasser Arafat hadn't passed away back in 04 ? Would he still have been able to exercise enough influence over FATAH in the West Bank to form an effective counterweight against the extremists in HAMAS ?
 

Tellus

Banned
Oh, for better or worse, you can be pretty sure therell be no break between these entities whilst Arafat is alive. Fatah may have a harder time been seen as a partner in peace because of it, but as long as he's around, Hamas will stay under control, in no small part because they knew he shared alot of their views.

Israel will use it as a pretext to not negociate of course - after all, he's the man who turned down Oslo - and Im pretty sure Arafat would turn down what Abbas turned down without a blink.
 
Arafat appeared very sick in the end. I dubt he would have been able to be a efficient leader no matter what.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
In his book Battle Ready, Tony Zinni (who was a special envoy to the talks trying to get the Tenet/Mitchell Plans back into play) talks about dealing with Yassir Arafat from 2001-2002 and said he basically had all of a few months of dealing with him before he knew he "couldn't bring home the bacon."
 
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