[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
Social welfare issues are not about "the trash getting picked up on time." They're about essential governmental services not being provided because the Fatah leaders plundered and stole the money coming in as aid for the Palestinian People.

[/ QUOTE ]Social services, which include the trash being picked up (i.e. achieving basic levels of cleanliness in everyday life) are important but only when you have settled other things first.

Man has priorities. First comes survival; a person cannot be pondering philosophical thoughts when his life is threatened. After Man ensures his survival, he strives for a decent way of life (this does not mean jet skis), since it's also difficult to wax poetically or write a novel when in squalor. Going beyond that, we arrive at levels where people can be creative, etc.

Palestinians, as I wrote, have been under fifty years of the same sh*t, collectively. What are they getting? They are constantly getting humiliated at the roadblocks, tortured at the hands of the IDF, their neighborhood torn down or a bullet in the head. No matter how Jazeera or other news outlets "explain" the switch of Palestinians to the religious fundamentalists, to me it's a switch to political radicalization, fuelled also by resentment of the previous guys' corruption. But the main motivation was desperation at their plight.

[ QUOTE ]
Yassir Arafat died a very rich man.

[/ QUOTE ]No one disputes, at least not me, that among his many traits of character, Yasser Arafat was (or became) a corrupt leader -- or, at the very least, a leader who allowed and used corruption amongst his cronies.

His own personal wealth was not something he enjoyed, though. Arafat engaged in the minimum amount of luxuries. But the corruption was there, all around him.