This hasn't been a great month for the Arabic world. Sheikh Zayed, former ruler of the UAE, and Yasser Arafat, former leader of the PLO, have both passed away.

No one questions the honour and generousity of Sheikh Zayed, and the love he had for his country.

Arafat, whatever his mistakes may be ( and he had a lot of them), genuinely believed in his cause and believed he was helping the Palestinian people. Although he might have hindered rather than helped them (that's for the people to decide), he was also genuinely loved by his people, and resembled their cause for a long time.

In the end, I'll leave it for someone from Palestine to give his comment:

We will carry on our fight for a just peace and freedom, some say he is a terrorist, some say he is great, to me now he is free, something we are all fighting to achieve.

Ahmad, Palestinian territories (taken from BBC website)

May their souls rest in peace.

¶ 6:28 PM