McGrath said

""Arafat is dying" - everybody is dying, Doug, apart from the ones who are already dead. "Dying" is really another way of saying "alive".

Just thought I'd add that cheerful reminder... "

This is what Philip Larkin had to say

For nations vague as weed,
For nomads among stones,
Small-statured cross-faced tribes
In mill-towns on dark mornings
Life is slow dying.

So are their separate ways
Of building, benediction,
Measuring love and money
Ways of slow dying.
The day spent hunting pig
Or holding a garden party,

Hours giving evidence
Or birth, advance
On death equally slowly.
And saying so to some
Means nothing; others it leaves
Nothing to be said.

======================

It was said on BBC R4 6pm news that Israel hopes that it can now have a reasonable Palestinian authority to talk with. The Palestinians have probably thought the same way for a long time. Sharon, man of peace? He made calculated moves to antagonise the Palestinians even before his election. Arafat may not have been an angel, but democracy in Israel and eleswhere have hardly sorted out the wheat from the chaff either.