- For fifty years, Yasser Arafat - or Abu Ammar as he is
more familiarly known - made the Palestinian cause his life's journey,
and along the way, be became the undisputed leader of the Palestinian
people. His passion spilled over into three words "Don't forget Palestine"
- words he wrote to Egypt's first President in 1953 when he was still
a student, and words which remained his mantra to the end. He lived and
breathed Palestine, but sadly, he did not survive to see an independent
Palestinian state.
-
- While the dream eluded him, Arafat was still looked upon
as "father of the nation", a man who had almost single-handedly
put Palestine back on the world stage when the very name Palestine had
been practically obliterated from the history books and maps, and its
people had been deemed non-existent. Naturally, as one would expect after
fifty years of controversial public life, there are those who love him
and those who hate him, the praise and the slander each creating their
own version of the man. Some criticisms are valid: most have been manufactured.
Yet, Arafat managed to keep his head above the madding crowd, determined
always to bring his people home from the wilderness.
-
- Like all liberation leaders, Yasser Arafat had to struggle
against the tide of influential powers, and even world opinion, but none
were ever in Arafat's precarious position - pitted against a powerful
enemy, surrounded by ambitious Arab leaders from neighbouring countries,
thwarted by an interfering Western world, unable to operate from within
his own country, without a well- equipped army, his people dispersed throughout
the world, and internationally unrecognised. Against such overwhelming
odds, Arafat continually had to navigate the shifting sands of intrigue
and sabotage, and he made mistakes. But, as the eminent Palestinian doctor,
Haidar Abd-al-Shafi pointed out "Whenever the need arose to make
a courageous decision, all the others disappeared and Arafat was left
alone. He was the only one who had the courage to decide."
-
- He was beloved. Arafat always sat amongst his people,
never in palaces. Friends and visitors found his warmth engaging and his
interest genuine. Stories abound of how Arafat would offer a morsel of
chicken or some other delicacy from his own plate to tempt a guest - it
was his form of breaking bread. Even in his last years, he chose to remain
in the besieged and rotting Ramallah compound with his people rather than
abandon them or his country for a more comfortable life in exile. For
all that, Arafat was a lonely man. He had sacrificed what other men wouldn't
and couldn't for Palestine.
-
- When Arafat was born sometime in August, 1929, his destiny
was fated to be burdensome. His birth name alone carried the weight of
family pedigree - Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat Al-Qudwa al-Husseini. His
birthplace, often disputed - Cairo or Jerusalem - saw him move from one
city to the other so much so that either could just as well have been
his home. Perhaps some foresaw his future and determined to call him Yasser
meaning easy, but there was nothing easy in the path he chose whilst studying
engineering at Cairo University. It was there that he became actively
involved with the politics of Palestine, and by 1958, he and some friends
had founded the Al-Fatah, an underground network of secret cells, which
then produced a magazine advocating armed resistance against Israel.
-
- Al-Fatah was not recognised by the Arab states because
Syria, Jordan and Egypt had formed their own group called the Palestine
Liberation Organisation (PLO) in a bid to control a political imbroglio
fomenting within their midst. However, the humiliating defeat of the Arab
States in the 1967 war - having lost the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights
and the West Bank - saw Arafat's Fatah movement rise to prominence due
to Arafat's guerrilla tactics which had achieved a considerable measure
of success against Israel. This was a turning point for Arafat. He realised
that if the Palestinians were ever to succeed, they could only rely on
themselves, and in 1968, thousands of Palestinians had joined the ranks
of Fatah, hailing Arafat as their hero and their leader.
-
- It was natural that Arafat should take on the mantle
of Chairman of the PLO after the Arab losses, although his guerrilla attacks
against Israel worried the leaders of some Arab countries because they
preferred a more conciliatory approach, which would primarily benefit
them. Not long after Jordan expelled him and his followers, accusing him
of setting up "a state within a state". For the next 25 years,
he operated from inside Lebanon and then Tunis before finally setting
foot in Palestine. This added to the many difficulties Arafat faced in
holding the liberation movement together. The fact that he managed this
for the years he spent outside Palestine, speaks volumes about his command
and influence, and more importantly, his sensitivity to the nuances of
all the different factions, passions, opinions, and pressures that surrounded
him.
-
- However, Arafat never saw armed struggle as the only
solution, and indeed when he realised that Israel could not be vanquished
by force after the 1973 defeat of Egypt and Syria, he began negotiating
with Israel. One of his greatest victories came on 13 November 1974, when
Arafat was invited to address the UN General Assembly for the first time
as leader of a legitimate people - the Palestinians. In a dramatic speech,
he called on the international community to decide between an olive branch
and a freedom fighter's gun.
-
- For the next 14 years, Arafat worked with incredible
patience, always sensitive to the passions arising from his people's
overwhelming pain. It was a slow process of dialogue and a gradual introduction
of his ideas. But, in all that time, he never neglected to support the
men who were still fighting in Lebanon. Both in 1982 and 1983, he stood
with them against the Israeli General Sharon who had invaded Lebanon to
drive out the Palestinians and to kill him. Both times, Arafat left to
fight another day, refusing to surrender. Those who fought with him will
never forget his courage and that he, like them, was ready to die for
the cause.
-
- As the 1987 intifada broke out, Arafat again began negotiations
with Israel. It was the following year that Arafat addressed the UN General
Assembly in a remarkable speech, which not only defended the Palestinian
position, but also accepted the need for compromise in the interests of
peace. By agreeing to an international conference for peace based on UN
Resolutions 242 and 338, Arafat de facto recognised Israel and accepted
that a Palestinian state would exist side by side with Israel. Until then,
compromise had not been regarded as an option by a people cruelly dispossessed
and still victims of Israel's brutal occupation and oppression. That Arafat
was able to bring about a paradigm shift in their thinking, whereby they
accepted their enemy's right to exist on 78% of the land stolen from them
is extraordinary, and underlines Arafat's credibility with his people.
No one else could have turned the Palestinians around.
-
- >From then on, Arafat was involved in numerous peace
negotiations with Israel, and the US as broker. However, his decision
to back Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War of 1991 threw the Palestinians
back into the abyss. He paid a huge price for his loyalty to the one
Arab leader who had supported the Palestinians. His decision rendered
Arafat irrelevant as a negotiating partner, and from this position Arafat
had the painful task of clambering out of the abyss to re-establish his
and the PLO's credibility and bring Palestine back into international
focus.
-
- In the meantime, bilateral talks held between Washington,
Israel and a non-PLO delegation, had stalled, and the PLO entered into
secret negotiations with Israel in Oslo. Arafat knew that concessions
had to be made and so he made concessions - too many for some and fatal
ones for others. Effectively, the arrangements gave Arafat limited self-rule
in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in exchange for Palestinian recognition
of Israel.
-
- Arafat was expected to establish a police force to control
internal security and leave external security to the Israelis. Other issues
were to be negotiated at various stages over five years, the most difficult
ones being left to "final status" talks. These arrangements
meant that Arafat had finally abandoned his long held dream of a single
secular democratic state in favour of the two state solution. In reaching
such a compromise, Arafat had taken a political gamble knowing that some
would see it as a sell-out in order to bring the PLO back from the cold.
Others were convinced that this shift was well worth the sacrifices the
Palestinians would have to make individually and collectively. The negotiations
culminated in the signing of the "Declaration of Principles"
in 1993. With US President Bill Clinton watching, Arafat shook hands
with Israel's Prime Minister Rabin and thereby sealed an interim agreement
between the PLO and Israel of joint recognition.
-
- For Palestinians around the world, it was a momentous
occasion. Many saw it as the beginning of a new, although severely protracted,
Palestine. Others were outraged. They felt Arafat had offered too much
and consigned the Palestinians to Bantustans effectively making a two
state solution impossible. Nevertheless, he was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize the following year together with Rabin and Israel's Shimon Peres
for their efforts in the Oslo negotiations. Then in January 1996 Arafat
was elected the first president of the Palestinian National Authority
(PNA) overseeing the 88-seat Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) governing
the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It was a short-lived victory. Rabin was
assassinated by an Israeli extremist and Israel's new Prime Minister
Netanyahu was determined to undermine the Oslo process by refusing to
implement the first stages of the agreement.
-
- The world had expected Arafat to become a statesman after
the Oslo Accords, but Israel did not allow him the dignity of presiding
over a state. Arafat had been simply relegated to the task of keeping
the Palestinian population under control while Israel kept a vice- like
grip on the provisional state's borders, airspace and water, inevitably
affecting its economic viability. Clearly, Israel had never intended to
hand over territorial sovereignty.
-
- It was another devastating blow to Arafat's credibility.
The Oslo Accords had not ended the occupation. Instead, the Palestinians
found themselves facing an apartheid situation worse than anything endured
by South Africa. The blanket closure of Palestinian civilian life, random
attacks and relentless home demolitions rendering thousands homeless,
while Israel continued to build settlements, soon caused some Palestinians
to wonder what Arafat had actually achieved for them. Arafat, under an
obligation to provide peace and security, saw his police force being decimated
by Israeli targeted attacks and was then in the humiliating position
of being unable to keep a lid on the explosive situation that was building
daily.
-
- By July 2000, Arafat was being pressured to take part
in "final status" talks hosted by US President Clinton at Camp
David. These talks were supposed to be the culmination of the phased Oslo
peace process and were meant to resolve the most difficult issues of
Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees. Arafat had to walk away: he simply
could not agree to Israel's conditions. There was no choice. He either
had to accept the Bantustans already proven so disastrous in Apartheid
South Africa, back down on the inalienable right of return for the Palestinian
refugees and make impossible concessions on East Jerusalem, or accept
the ugly consequences of refusing to negotiate "peace". Prime
Minister Barak's "generous" offer was totally without substance:
a threat rather than a proposal.
-
- Arafat, of course, was the bête noire of the talks.
We are never told that during those negotiations, no maps were offered
by Israel, no detailed solution was given, nothing was in writing. Neither
are we told that contrary to what had been agreed at Oslo, Barak continued
to build settlements in the Occupied Territories. And, whatever support
Arafat might have been able to garner from his people on some of the issues
being negotiated, concessions on East Jerusalem as the capital of the
Palestinian State, and the right of return for all Palestinian refugees,
were simply non- negotiable. The irony of it all is that Israel was held
up as offering something when in fact it was offering nothing, and Arafat
emerged as the man who rejected peace. The Palestinian people despaired.
-
- Arafat and Barak returned home to an enemy waiting in
the wings. Sharon, Arafat's arch-enemy was about to make his entry on
to the world stage. His provocative visit to the compound in Jerusalem
called Haram al-Sharif by Muslims and Temple Mount by Jews with 1000
Israeli security forces was deliberately engineered to display Jewish
sovereignty over the area, and when angry unarmed Palestinians began throwing
stones at the police in riot gear, Sharon's security forces retaliated
with gunfire. People were killed and many were injured. The ugly clashes
which ensued are often cited as the beginning of the Al Aqsa intifada
and were clearly set off by Sharon's provocative act and not Arafat's
so- called rejection of peace.
-
- No one was surprised that the peace process was effectively
frozen when Barak lost the elections to Sharon. The war that had been
unleashed on the Palestinians even before Camp David, now escalated ferociously.
No matter how much Arafat condemned suicide bombings, Israel made sure
that he was seen as tolerating, even encouraging the suicide bombers which
gave Sharon the necessary excuse to reject Arafat as a viable partner
in any peace negotiations. This then led to a bizarre turn of events,
whereby President Bush declared Sharon "a man of peace" even
as Sharon was bulldozing his way through the territories and announcing
that Arafat was a target for assassination. Arafat, the man who had shared
the Nobel peace prize with Rabin and Peres was now branded a terrorist
and unfit to negotiate peace.
-
- The world watched incredulously as Sharon declared an
all-out war on Palestinians - on Ramallah, Jenin, Bethlehem, Nablus, Tulkarem,
Qalqilya, and particularly, Arafat. More than 100 tanks rolled into Ramallah
in April 2002 and began smashing Arafat's headquarters leaving him besieged
in a few rooms without electricity or water. For the next two and a half
years, Arafat was a prisoner within his own walls and within his own land,
while Sharon continued to blitz Palestinian cities and assassinate Palestinian
leaders. The Palestinian Authority was all but dead and the Oslo Accords
had foundered. Expecting Arafat to rein in the violence was a futile
demand under the circumstances, but Arafat continued to issue one statement
after another in Arabic calling for an end to violence and any further
suicide attacks. All to no avail. The people had suffered too much and
without an effective police force, Arafat had no way of bringing law and
order to civic life.
-
- This time, however, Arafat refused to go into exile,
preferring to stay with his people. If anyone knew Sharon, it was Arafat.
He knew that Sharon wanted all of Palestine and would dismantle everything
that had been gained through the Oslo Accords. Some were prepared to
give Sharon the war he wanted. Arafat was not. He, therefore, had to find
a way of becoming "relevant" again and in March 2003, Arafat
agreed to political reforms and to share power with Mahmoud Abbas as prime
minister. It opened the way for a "road map" for peace drawn
up by the Quartet - the US, UN, EU, and Russia. But as before, neither
Abbas nor Arafat were able to control the Palestinian militants, much
less put an end to suicide bombings: the roadmap was leading nowhere.
-
- With Arafat imprisoned in the Muqata - his headquarters
in Ramallah - the road map deadlocked and as Sharon continued his rampage,
the Palestinian situation fell further into crisis. Arafat needed a miracle.
He had fought countless adversities with enormous courage and determination,
and had always emerged relatively unscathed. But, not this time. A mystery
illness short-changed his life's work. Perhaps the saddest moment in his
long masterful career for those who watched was to see a frail old man
waving feebly to his people, before being airlifted out of Palestine.
It was too much of a miracle to hope that he would come back to lead his
people again.
-
- The wolves were baying a long time ago and the wolves
eventually closed in. Much will be written and analysed about Arafat and
his deeds, but for the Palestinian people, Arafat will always remain a
hero. Certainly, he made mistakes: he would not have been human otherwise.
But he never deserved the vitriol and bile that have been heaped on him
so cavalierly by his enemies and even Palestinians who comfortably criticise
from afar.
-
- He deserved more. This small man who was able to command
the world stage for his beleaguered people, who could excite passions
in men who served with him in the grimmest of battles, and who could to
the last, hold together the Palestinian factions, rivalries and differences
inherent in any society, deserved to see the peace he sought and negotiated.
He didn't. However, he did see out the terms of nine US presidents and
eleven Israeli prime ministers and came closer to peace and the Palestinian
dream than anyone had ever thought possible. He had tried everything and
to the end kept the olive branch firmly in his grasp. Tragically, for
all of us, it fell from his dying hand and the world lost the real peacemaker
in the Middle East.
-
- There will be others who will carry the cause aloft for
Palestine, but none who will ever symbolise the Palestinian struggle with
all its pain, its momentary glory, its dashed hopes, and its eternal
resilience, as potently or enduringly as Arafat. But, whoever wears his
mantle and its accumulated burdens, may yet see the dawn approaching -
the vision Arafat saw in 1988 in the hall of the UN General Assembly in
Geneva -
-
- " . . . Victory is at hand. I see the homeland in
your holy stones. I see the flag of our independent Palestine fluttering
over the hills of our beloved homeland . . ."
-
- Such was his faith: the stuff of legends - unshakeable,
uncompromised. Now, there is for all Palestinians a task to finish, a
dream to realise and a duty to hold Palestine up high above the madding
crowd as Arafat held it, so no one can forget Palestine - ever. For that,
Arafat or Abu Ammar should be remembered and thanked by all who seek peace
and justice for Palestine.
-
- Arafat died from a mystery illness in Paris on 11 November
2004.
-
-
- :: Article nr. 38136 sent on 12-nov-2007 19:51 ECT
- www.uruknet.info?p=38136
-
- :: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility
of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Uruknet .
|
