Let the Church be to Israel, as Ruth was to Naomi! She said: .."wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you stay I'll stay. YOUR people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die, I will die.. "Ruth 1: 16-17

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Jn 15:13

ARAFAT DEAD!

STATE OF CHAOS:
Uncontrollable mobs and gunmen disrupt burial ceremony
By Israel Insider staff and partners 

November 12, 2004

Police fired wildly into the air to keep back the surging crowd at the
West Bank compound known as the Muqata. Frantic mourners surged toward
the tomb as clerics recited prayers, trampling the olive tree saplings
the were planted around the grave according to Islamic tradition.

Officials tried for 25 minutes to open the helicopter door to remove the
coffin onto a jeep that had plowed through the crowd to clear a path. As
the coffin was carried toward the gravesite, police jumped on top of it,
waved their arms and flashed the victory sign. People chanted, "With our
blood and our soul we will redeem you Yasser Arafat!"

Gunfire was heard on an almost continuous basis the compound area.
Palestinian paramedics carrying stretchers ran frantically near the
entrance, aiding the wounded demonstrators.

Gunmen holding assault rifles aloft by one hand fired long bursts into
the air. Two mourners were reportedly lightly wounded by the gunfire.
About 30 people were treated for fainting and other conditions related
to the over-crowding. A steady stream of ambulances carried away the
wounded. Even they had a hard time getting through the dense chanting
mob.

Mahmoud Abbas, the new head of the PLO, and Omar Suleiman, Egypt's
director of intelligence, tried to emerge from the helicopter, but were
kept back by the huge, chaotic crowd.

Clearly upset and agitated by the scene, the officials peered from the
partially open side door of one of the helicopters, discussing how best
to control the crowd and begin the ceremony. In the end, they just gave
up on any attempt to conduct a ceremony or allow the corpse to lie in
state for public viewing, as had been planned.

"It is not what we expected," said Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb
Erekat, who traveled in the Egyptian military helicopter with Arafat's
coffin. "At the same time, we had to do the burial before sunset in
Islamic tradition. ... I expected much better, more organized, but
things got out of hand, unfortunately."

CNN reports that Erekat and new acting PA leader Mahmoud Abbas were not
allowed to even leave the helicopter, prevented from leaving by the
crowd.

Thousands of Palestinians, many of them youths, barged into the Mukata
earlier Friday, some of them climbing on ladders and entering the site
through its roof, in an attempt to take part in the burial ceremony of
Yasser Arafat.

Hundreds of PA National Guard policemen tried to prevent the mob from
entering uninvited. Officials called over microphones to the crowd: "If
you love Abu Amar [Arafat], please stop."

Masked men carrying guns walked in groups among the crowd.

The red, white, green and black flag was ripped off the casket as it was
carried through the crowd.

The failure of police to control the pandemonium augured poorly for
Palestinian hopes to maintain calm and order in the wake of Arafat's
death.

Earlier, people burst through gates of the Muqata and climbed over walls
to pay their final respects to the man who embodied their dreams of
statehood.

Armed policemen had tried for several hours to keep people back, but
mourners, eager to get close to the gravesite, pushed their way through.
Police scrambled to keep people off the landing pad.

A small group of masked gunmen marched into the Muqata, ignoring calls
from official Palestine TV not to carry arms or mask faces, as is common
in Palestinian funerals during times of crisis. However, the gunmen
calmly submitted to inspection by plainclothes security personnel who
ensured there were no bullets in the chambers. Apparently they didn't
check carefully.

The 75-year-old Arafat, who led the Palestinians for four decades, died
Thursday at a Paris hospital from an undisclosed illness. French
hospital officials cited privacy laws in explaining why they would not
reveal, as is usually done, his cause of death.

On Friday, teenage boys climbed onto the walls of the compound chanting
"Whoever poisoned Arafat, we will drink his blood." Others cried out,
"Allahu akbar," Arabic for "God is great," and "We want to see Abu
Ammar."

Top Arafat aide Tayeb Abdel Rahim emerged from the compound and asked
the crowd to stop chanting. "The whole world is watching us now on
television and we have to reflect our real picture," he said.

In Jerusalem, hundreds of Palestinian youths scuffled with Israeli
police outside the al-Aqsa mosque after police barred them from prayers
amid fear of riots and unrest during Arafat's funeral.

Israeli police, ordered to stay on the sidelines of the burial, were on
their highest state of alert and canceled all leaves, worried that the
prayers for the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, together with
mourning for Arafat, would get out of control.

Egypt gave Arafat a state funeral in Cairo, even though he never
realized his dream of Palestinian statehood.

The service began amid heavy security with humble prayers at a mosque at
a mosque in a military compound and ended with a procession, his
flag-draped wooden casket set on a horse-drawn gun carriage and followed
by a crowd of presidents and kings.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah as well as
Abbas and Farouk Kaddoumi, the newly chosen leader of the Fatah
organization, were among the dignitaries who marched behind the casket
on a residential street a short distance toward a military airfield.
Doors and shutters of homes along the route were closed, and the street
was cut off to the public.

Arafat's veiled widow, Suha, and their rarely seen 9-year-old daughter,
Zahwa, wept as the Palestinian and Egyptian national anthems were played
by a band before the casket was loaded aboard an Egyptian military
plane. Suha disappeared between Cairo and Ramallah. She or her daughter
were not seen in Ramallah. She is not considered popular among most
Palestinians, and there were concerns for her safety if she showed up.

Israeli commentator Ari Shavit of Haaretz told CNN that the burial scene
reflecting the lack of political stability: "When you see this kind of
violent chaos, this is what disturbs Israelis the most."

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