Arafat

Our current affairs English class studied a couple of articles about Yasser Arafat this morning.

The first was an Al-Jazeera article which quoted an anonymous Palestinian official as saying that Arafat's death would be announced today.

The second was a BBC article which said that Arafat was in the final stages of his life after suffering a brain haemorrhage on Tuesday.

It turned out that the official announcement of his death was made while our class was in progress. Arafat will probably have a funeral in Cairo and be buried in Ramallah.

I love that our mixed nationality class that includes both Muslims and Christians can discuss Israel and the Palestinians in such a sane way. Having suffered so much violence themselves, I realised that most of the class can empathise in a way that isn't even possible for me.