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Interviews Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Information on the continuity of the Palestinian war; Call for unity among Arab nations; Explanation of the geographic boundaries of Palestine; Discussion of the national identity of Palestine; Comments on the operations of Israeli commandos; Reference to psychological warfare against Egypt.

Comments on the late President Yasser Arafat as a Palestinian icon. Arafat's political survival; Political leadership style; Arafat as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism.

The author pays tribute to Edward Said, a professor of literature at Columbia University and a contributor to "The Nation" who died on September 25, 2003. Born in Jerusalem to a well-off Palestinian family, educated at the best schools in Cairo and the United States, Said could have been content with his distinguished career as a professor of literature at Columbia. But as author of seminal books that factored colonialism into the Western literary canon -- including "Orientalism," one of the most influential works of intellectual history of the past three decades, and "Culture and lmperialism" -- he had a larger vision of his place in the world and his responsibilities as an Arab in the West. So he created another life, as a critic of Western imperialism and a champion of Palestinian liberation. His association with "The Nation" emblemized both his lives. He wrote articles on the Middle East and also served as music critic. He turned his lucid, elegantly erudite prose to interpreting the Palestinian-Israeli struggle. He was as passionate about his music criticism--a post serendipitously assigned him by the literary editor, who knew him as a concert-level pianist. Said considered the true role Of the artist and the intellectual in our times to be "speaking the truth to power, being a witness to persecution and suffering, and supplying a dissenting voice in conflicts with authority." A great and distinctive voice is stilled, too soon.

This article presents information regarding rights of Palestinians. The families of prisoners, the staff of closed and censored publications, the victims of eviction and confiscation, none were ever turned away. The author has met influential "civil society" Palestinians alive today who were protected as students when Israel was a professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University; from him they learned never to generalize about Jews. And they respected him not just for his consistent stand against discrimination but also because-he never condescended to them. He detested nationalism and religion and made no secret of his contempt for the grasping Yasser Arafat entourage.

Discusses the political issues surrounding the visit of Yasir Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on January 22, 1998 for a meeting with President Bill Clinton. Foreign policy of the United States in the Middle East peace process; Analysis of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict; Israeli imperialism and Arab nationalism.

The article focuses on the future of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence after the death of the Palestinian Authority's President Yasir Arafat. The decades-long symbolism that Arafat embodied should not be underestimated. The substance of Arafat's symbolism has to do with how it has represented Palestinian nationalism and the five-decade struggle for justice for a people that were dispossessed in 1948, militarily occupied in 1967, attacked while in exile in 1970 in Jordan and 1982 in Lebanon, and most recently, battered in their own homes in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

Pays tribute to the late Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) founder Yasser Arafat. Role of the PLO in the modern practice of terrorism and national consciousness of the Palestinians; Factors that contributed to the failure of Arafat in using the power given by Israel to govern the Occupied Territories to eliminate terrorist groups within the Palestinian society; Impact of the death of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Arafat and on the Palestinians.

The article presents Professor of Jewish Civilization Abraham Udovitch's views on post Yassir Arafat Palestine. He lamented the absence within Israel of someone of Arafat's stature. He identified Arafat's biggest achievement as unifying the Palestine Liberation Organization, thereby transforming the Palestinian issue from a refugee problem in need of humanitarian assistance to a people struggling for their rights. To accomplish this, Udovitch explained, Arafat had to thread his way through both Zionist and Arab nationalisms. Udovitch described Palestine's 1988 Declaration of Independence as a huge turning point in which Palestinians accepted the legality of partition by opting for a two-state solution rather than a single secular and democratic state.

Focuses on the political leadership of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Reference to a suicide bombing by a Palestinian in Israel on November 1, 2004; Report that Arafat was flown to Paris, France, due to illness; Hope of Israelis that the death of Arafat would lead to renewed peace negotiations with Palestine; Possibility that Arafat's successor will be a nationalist or an Islamist militiaman; Killings of Palestinians by Israelis in the occupied territories; Failure of Arafat to provide Palestinians with protection; Discussion of the impending removal of Israelis from Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank.