They had a viable alternative...Abbas. But Arafat got in the way of that.....wait, i mean what Matt Clark said. You know, it seems everyone here agrees with me on Arafat. They acknowledge he's a terrorist and an obstacle to peace. But it seems I'm the only one who supports removing him. Look, you may not agree, but that doesn't mean you have to insult my intelligence. If you think that was a rant, that was becuase i was tired of reading 12 straight "why remove arafat?" posts. Pardon me.
Problem is, they were not WHY remove Arafat posts. That just happened to be the windmill you tilted your lance at. It's the HOW that is at issue here. And, as things stand, yours is the dumbest yet. Hence the intelligence queries. And FWIW, there is ample justification for arguing that it was not just Arafat that got in the way of Abbas and his administration delivering lasting benefits to the Palestinian people. In this crisis, it is never 'just' anyone.
No, you are the only one that supports assasinating him. How would you feel if, say, Saddam had Dubya assasinated as being an obstacle to peace in Iraq? (Again, it's not a perfect analogy - but good enough.) How would I feel? I'd be pretty damn pissed, and I neither like Dubya nor think our cause in Iraq is just. You just don't go around assasinating heads-of-(pseudo-)state. It's not good for business.