Stateless President

“Stateless President”, that’s how BBC described him in his funeral. He was like a father to Palestinians and he was leading the most popular freedom movement group in Palestine and guess no one else will ever have his charisma & authority in that country again. Seeing his funeral ceremony I remembered Imam’s funeral ceremony. Lots of people were there to say their last goodbye to their leader. The big man who meant Palestine to the entire world. This is true beside one place in the world and that’s Iran. He was not the right guy to negotiate with. This was how both Iran and Western countries thought about him. But one side assumed him too radical and the other too easy taking and somewhat of a betrayer to the people of Palestine. Friday was the day of Palestine in the world. They were showing Araft’s funeral and Palestinians’ gathering as a sign of respect to the Palestinians and their leader in most of the world TV channels while the respect sign for Palestinian and their movement was the Iranians gathering for the Qods day in Iranian TV channels. Why Arafat meant this much different in west and Iran?
Here you can find an article by BBC trying to explain this question to some extent.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/news/story/2004/11/041111_mf_arafat.shtml