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Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, 75, the leader who
passionately sought a homeland for his people but was seen by many
Israelis as a ruthless terrorist and a roadblock to peace, died early
Thursday, November 11 2004 in Paris.
A hospital spokesman said he died at 3:30 a.m. (02:30 GMT)
It remains to be seen what will now happen in the Middle East, where
Arafat was at the center of the difficulties extending over decades.
From any perspective, it seems likely that this is a momentous change,
because he created a unique personal texture in official negotiations and
also (some would say) the intifada that has been a
prominent aspect of the Palestinian presence in the region.
Even before Arafat's death, there were symbolic signs of change, like
Arafat's empty chair at the executive meeting of the PLO. The two men
who are now running the government - former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas
and the current Prime Minster Ahmed Qorei, have reputations as
moderates. Activists outside the Palestinian leadership were looking at
Arafat's death as an opportunity to push for reforms -- open and
accountable government, elections, and reforming of the Palestinian
security services - that Arafat fought against for years
The formal event is defined as the 12 hours following Arafat's death,
which was at 02:30 GMT. This period covers the time when any strong
reactions might be expected (ultimately there were none). The news
spread around the world, and early demonstrations of respect took place.
Chisquare is 43682.5 on 43200 df, with p = 0.051, Z = 1.638.
Bryan Williams has produced a conceptual replication analysis, using
15-minute blocking instead of the raw seconds resolution. The following
figure gives the result. The
data started off as a random walk for the first several hours, then at
around 06:30 UTC, went into a fairly steady positive trend that
culminated around 12:30 UTC. The overall result was significant in block
form, with Chi-Square = 3100.97, 2946 df, p = .023, associated z = 1.99.
Adrial Patrut suggested that the during the entire "Yasser Arafat
episode", the most emotional moment was the actual burial at
Muqata, Ramallah, on Friday 12.11.2004, in the presence of an
enthusiastic crowd of 250,000 mourners.
He provided the exact times when the helicopter carying Arafat's corpse
landed in Ramallah, in the midst of a huge and chaotic croud that
the Palestinian Police utterly
failed to control, and when the coffin of Arafat was lowered into the
concrete crypt and covered with holy earth from Jerusalem.
The following figure shows this time period, with the special moments
marked. This is an informal analysis, which cannot be statistically
evaluated, but it is an interesting graph visually.
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