After Arafat?

After Arafat?
Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen
Progreso Weekly, 18 November 2004

While a comatose Yasser Arafat lay in his Paris hospital bed right until
his
November 11 death, the media raised symbolic questions, unrelated to the
central issues. Would Israel allow Arafat to be buried in the Haram
al-Sharif mosque in Jerusalem's old city? Or would they force his remains
to
lie in Gaza? Would Washington push for a compromise so that Arafat's
remains
could lie in Ramallah on the West Bank? Outside his guarded hospital room,
other PLO "leaders" debated the political implications of his burial site.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vetoed Jerusalem, emphasizing Israel's
claim of exclusive ownership of the old city - another slap in the now dead
Arafat's face. Sharon would hardly concede symbolic status by allowing his
rival to be buried there. "Jerusalem is a city where Jews bury their kings.
It's not a city where we want to bury an Arab terrorist, a mass murderer,"
spat Israel's Justice Minister, Yosef "Tommy" Lapid. Although Western media
portray him in those pejorative terms, Arafat was a serious historical
figure, whose death will usher in unpredictable changes in the turbulent
history of Palestine and Israel.

But before a patient dies, the doctors should ask: who made him sick?
Although hospital authorities denied the theory, some knowledgeable
insiders
-who asked for anonymity - speculated that the PLO equivalents of Brutus
and Cassius poisoned Arafat (their puny version of Caesar) to grab not only
his ambiguous political power but his reputed large fortune as well (Some
newspapers estimated his wealth at $10 billion, $100,000 a month of which
"sustained" his wife, Suha, in her Paris hotel). She fought with some PLO
over who had the authority to pull the switch on his life support system.

Arafat's death might actually open the door to political possibilities for
Palestinians that were vitiated by his leadership. As a politician, for
forty years he inconclusively struggled with Israel, the West, and other
Arab states while simultaneously manipulating to maintain control
internally.

Arafat did not address the succession question adequately, perhaps for the
better. A new crop of Palestinian leadership without ties to the aging PLO
bureaucrats might well emerge from the grassroots. But those who judged
Arafat also share the blame for the Middle East morass. As the West has
done
with all of its former colonies after exploiting and oppressing for
centuries, it places the onus for all "mistakes" in development or corrupt
government on the occupied people themselves. The Palestinians thus bear
the
responsibility for removing "obstacles to peace," which Washington and Tel
Aviv define. The media pose the issue as if the Palestinian were one simply
and irresponsible entity.

This framing of the issue begs a key question: who did Arafat actually
represent? Although Palestinians elected him President in 1996, Arafat owed
a decades-long debt to a small group of rich businessmen whose interests
did
not reflect those of the impoverished majority.

Since the mid 1960s, Arafat received financial support from this group of
nationalist-minded entrepreneurs as well as from oil-rich and corrupt Arab
governments, like Saudi Arabia. But from the outset, he personally
dominated
the politics of Palestinian independence. Like most third world nationalist
movements, the PLO sought to bring Palestinians from colonization and
defeat
onto the stage of contemporary history.

In 1964, the Arab League backed a Palestinian base in Cairo to stir
nationalist feelings within the diaspora, which formed in 1948 after
militant Zionists forced them to flee their land and homes to neighboring
Arab states.

After the humiliating defeat of Arab states by Israel during the 1967 war,
the small group of nationalists transformed itself into a viable resistance
movement committed to the liberation of Palestine. In 1969, the various and
often fractious groups inside this coalition elected Arafat, who headed
Al-Fatah (The Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine), as
chairman of the PLO executive committee.

After 1967. PLO operated from exile in an apparently hospitable Jordan. But
in 1970, the late King Hussein, fearing that the size and power of the
Palestinian movement there represented both a provocation to Israel and a
threat to his own power, attacked PLO members. During a ten-day period
known
as Black September the Jordanian army slaughtered over three thousand
Palestinians. Arafat then moved the psychically wounded and physically
depleted organization to Lebanon. But in 1982, Israel invaded and bombed
that country. The media reported the ensuing massacres by Israeli-paid
Lebanese para-militaries of more than a thousand Palestinians in the
refugee
camps at Sabra and Shatila.

By then, the PLO had gained world recognition as a result of 8 members of
the Black September group (later found to be tied to the PLO) kidnapping 11
Israelis hostage at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

During the late 1970s, the Israeli government, fearful of Palestinian
nationalism's growing appeal, offered support to the religious Hamas, with
the intent of undercutting the more secular PLO. Israeli intelligence
officials believed that the Palestinian poor in the West Bank and Gaza
would
follow the non-political mullahs, since PLO ideology asked Palestinians for
their allegiance, but offered little or no material benefits.

Hamas did begin to thrive. They reached the poor in the West Bank and Gaza
while Arafat and company operated in Tunisia after Israel's 1982 conquest
of
Lebanon. The PLO remained in North Africa until the 1993 signing of the
Oslo
Accords. In September of that year, President Clinton pushed the reluctant
Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin to shake hands at the White
House lawn. People of the world breathed a collective sigh of relief: peace
would have a chance. The Palestinians, it seemed, would have their state,
however incomplete and weak.

But Arafat did little to set the stage at Oslo. Rather, Palestinians in the
West Bank and Gaza, some of whom did not take orders from the PLO, had
staged a six year long Intifada (uprising), that pushed Israel to the
bargaining table. Younger Palestinians led this non-violent movement that
erupted in 1987. Within a short time, most sectors of Palestinian society
supported it since they all shared the daily hardships of life under
Israeli
occupation and dissatisfaction with the PLO's external leadership.

Two events, however, soon undercut the elation over the Oslo accords and
the
historic handshake. In 1995, Yigal Amir, assassinated Rabin proclaiming
himself a patriot who had removed an obstacle in the path of the "greater
Israel." In addition, Israel surprised the PLO by expanding the
construction
of settlements on Palestinian territories.

Arafat had no control over Israeli fanatics, like Amir and Baruch
Goldstein,
who in 1994 shot 29 Palestinians praying at the Mosque of Abraham. But
Arafat had he and his staff read the Oslo accords they would have known
that
Israel had not explicitly condemned the building of future settlements nor
pledged to stop them; nor did Israel agree to withdraw from all the
settlements. Instead, the agreement read: "Neither side shall initiate or
take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations."

Israel also refused to address in the Oslo agreement the other contentious
issues of the Palestinian right to return and the status of Jerusalem. Such
indiscipline on the part of the PLO had become ubiquitous. As Israeli
leaders plotted anti-PLO strategy with precision, some PLO leaders spent
precious hours in Washington before key meetings eating and drinking in
fancy hotels. They displayed arrogance by not consulting with brilliant
Palestinian intellectuals in exile like Edward Said or with politically
savvy allies in Washington. Arafat himself set the tone for this kind of
behavior.

In September 2000, Ariel Sharon entered the Haram al-Sharif mosque and
provoked the second Palestinian Intifada. Outfoxed again, Arafat found
himself confined by the Israelis to his crumbling Ramallah compound. His
status was deflated. Indeed, President Bush called him "irrelevant."

Arafat seemed not to understand that because of its non-violent nature the
first Intifada won world opinion to the Palestinian side and helped force
Israel to make concessions. Under his supposed leadership, the second
Intifada took a violent and inhuman course: suicide bombing, in which older
men programmed young people to blow themselves up. The tactic unified a
divided Israel and allowed Sharon to use his superior armed force to
inflict
ever heavier casualties on the Palestinian people. The decaying and
stagnant
Palestinian "leadership" no longer led. The growing and explosive nature of
Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade began to dominate Palestinian
reality.

Arafat remained the symbol of third world nationalism and specifically
Palestinian liberation. His determination and sacrifice for the Palestinian
cause were inevitably diluted by the sources of PLO money, which led to
corruption within the organization. He personally possessed the courage to
face deprivation and death, while simultaneously lacking the discipline to
do his homework before making decisive judgments (like signing Oslo and
aligning with Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War). These mistakes define
leaders. While his Israeli adversaries worked tirelessly to spin issues in
their favor, Arafat frittered away opportunities to persuade world opinion.
Albeit the Israelis had far superior resources, Arafat disregarded the
wisdom of brilliant Palestinians abroad in their efforts to guide him
toward
more effective policies.

Palestinians merit better, visionary leadership over the next decade. They
and the Israelis will recognize that they share the same land. Eventually a
one or two-state solution will emerge. But Yasser Arafat deserves his niche
in history, alongside the universal struggle of peoples to
self-determination.

Copyright 2004 Progreso Weekly