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Isolated in Ramallah by Israeli tanks, threatened by the possibility of exile or an extra judicial execution by Ariel Sharon and completely ignored as an interlocutor by George W Bush, during the past two years Arafat has re-emerged as the very symbol incarnating the Palestinian resistance.
Writing in the New Left review just a few days after 9/11, one of the most prominent and respected Palestinian academics in the world, the late Edward Said dismissed Arafat as a man worthy of leading the Palestinian people. He went as far as writing: “Arafat is finished. Why don’t we admit that he can neither lead, nor plan, nor take a single step that makes any difference except to him and his Oslo cronies who have benefited materially from their people’s misery?
“All the polls show that his presence blocks whatever forward movement might be possible. We need a united leadership capable of thinking, planning and taking decisions, rather than grovelling before the Pope or George Bush while the Israelis kill his people with impunity.”
Surprisingly two years later, even in a coma, Arafat remains the undisputed leader of the Palestinian people.
By refusing to even acknowledge Arafat, George W Bush ensured that no Palestinian would stand out as a future Palestinian interlocutor. The twin policies of Bush and Sharon have put Palestinian democracy in deep freeze. Although Arafat has been isolated in Ramallah, he has emerged as a living martyr. Even Hamas militants refrain from challenging his leadership. His impending death appears so premature only because Israel has demolished the few existing Palestinian institutions.
Like most anti-colonial leaders emerging in the 1960s Arafat owes his power to charisma. Arafat in his military uniform impersonated Palestine.
Unfortunately, basing his power on charisma tended to lead to absolutism, despotism and corruption.
To his credit Arafat’s power was legitimised by a democratic election in 1996. He was in fact elected President of the Palestinian National Authority by the vast majority of Palestinian voters. Unlike most third world pariahs he also gained international recognition after shaking hands with Clinton and Rabin while signing the Oslo agreement. By signing this treaty Arafat effectively accepted terms no other Palestinian politician would have accepted without losing the support of a sizeable part of the population. Edward Said described this agreement as one in which Israel was: “offering a token 18 per cent of the lands seized in 1967 to the corrupt Vichy-like Authority of Arafat, whose mandate has essentially been to police and tax his people on Israel's behalf.”
Yet despite knowing all this, Bush and Sharon stalled the road map process by excluding the old man in Ramallah. To add insult to injury they offended him by choosing Abu Mazen as their interlocutor! Thus they ensured Abu Mazen’s quick descent from power.
More than 10 years later the Oslo agreement is in shambles. Israel, still in breach of various security council resolutions and still armed with weapons of mass destruction, has embarked on putting in practice a brave new world for the Palestinian people: A Palestinian enclave in Gaza and parts of the West Bank, surrounded by an illegal wall and run by a weakened Palestinian authority relying on Israeli military incursions to crush restless Islamists fighting for a real Palestinian state. Something like a collective prison with all or some of the pretensions of statehood.
Like the petrifying body of the Latin American caudillo in one of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s books, Arafat’s frail body inspires awe and fear of the future. The present historical conjuncture of a Bush victory in the USA and a dying Arafat in Paris weighs heavily on the future of Palestine, the Middle East and the World.
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