Yasir Arafat, who died ten years ago today, inflicted enormous suffering not only in Israel, Jordan and Lebanon but on the Palestinian people. Elliott Abrams considers his legacy:
After the Israeli victory in 1967, civic life began to grow in the West Bank and Gaza. Roughly 700 NGOs were formed, the economy grew, and a far better future seemed possible. But after Arafat returned to rule in 1994, he crushed that civic life, made a mockery of the new Palestinian legislature that had been formed, and substituted a corrupt dictatorship. Theft of aid funds was constant and totaled around a billion dollars. Arafat created thirteen “security” forces that he manipulated to assure his total control, and most were also involved in acts of violence: Ariel Sharon used to call them “security-terror organizations.” The rise of Hamas owes a great deal to the disgust many Palestinians felt toward the repressive and corrupt PLO and PA that Arafat built.
Read more on Pressure Points: http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2014/11/07/arafat-ten-years-later/