Obituary writers too often are gripped with a numbing fear of speaking ill of the dead. Often the result is a picture of someone in death that is far more savory than the person was in life.

It is troublesome, for instance, how many “analysts” found it so easy to be complimentary of the late Yasser Arafat, the self-serving Palestinian Liberation Organization leader who recently died after a long illness.

One of the best and most accurate reactions came from the Williamsport, Pa., Sun-Gazette, which said editorially:

“It would be hard to imagine, in this post-9-11 world, a famous terrorist being welcomed in world capitals, feted with the Nobel Peace Prize, allowed to abscond with hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) in foreign aid, never prosecuted for his crimes and spending his last days under the protection of a Western government (France). Yet that was the treatment accorded Yasser Arafat in his last years and last days.”

Adds the Sun-Gazette: “Even in the name of the ‘organization,’ a corrupt kleptocracy really, that he (Arafat) putatively headed is an anachronism. In the 1960s and 1970s it was fashionable to refer to assorted terrorist groups and Soviet-bankrolled rebel forces as ‘armies of liberation.’ … Arafat turned his back on the best peace deal ever offered by the Israeli government; he decided instead to continue encouraging suicide bombings, the result of which was a justifiable Israeli military response. Peace — and the eventual prosperity it would bring — was not in Arafat’s personal interest. In chaos, people like him can prosper.”

It would be difficult to find anyone who epitomizes the concept of “personal interest” more than the conniving Arafat.

The Sun-Gazette offered a capsule box score of sorts. Arafat personally was responsible for, among other acts of terrorism, the 1972 Olympics massacre of 11 Israeli athletes, the 1973 murders of two American diplomats, the 1974 massacre of two dozen Israeli schoolchildren, the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro (where wheelchair-bound American Leon Klinghoffer was pushed overboard to his death), and countless suicide bombings in which hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian innocents have been murdered. There is so much, much more.

The world is a better place without Yasser Arafat. In his long reign of terror he poisoned the political atmosphere among Palestinans so badly that any new leader will face a terrible, perhaps impossible, task. There is so much damage to repair, it is difficult to see how it can be accomplished along a productive path to peace of any kind. Further, what about the millions of dollars that should have gone for peaceful purposes that now are squirreled away in private accounts for the heirs and minions of “the leader”?

So no glowing rundowns, please, about the merits of Yasser Arafat and his “many contributions” to the world. He was an individual who repeatedly dodged projects of a peaceful nature to maintain his grip on a murderous crew of thugs who were just as disinterested in law and order as he.