With every passing year since we lost Yasser Arafat, the lack of a powerful, charismatic Palestinian leader stands in ever sharper relief and compounds the nation’s misfortune.
I knew Arafat well and will not gloss over our differences in deference to his memory. We argued often and I was frequently critical of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader in my editorials. Yet, under Arafat’s watch, the Palestinian cause was constantly under the global media spotlight and we Palestinians were perceived by the rest of the world as wronged, proud and tough. Arafat knew how to hit the headlines. I was among a pack of journalists and photographers that he led on a mystery walk through the streets of Calcutta (now Kolkata) shortly after he addressed a football stadium full of Indian fans in 1990. Twenty minutes later, we found ourselves entering the humble surroundings of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. Arafat sat side by side with the 90-year-old Nobel laureate, deep in conversation, as if oblivious to clicking of cameras and the blaze of arc lights. The next day, this image graced the front pages of every major newspaper in the world and was the main story on television news channels everywhere. (Arafat himself was awarded the Nobel Peace prize four years later).
Arafat was a great individual and a charismatic personality. He understood the power of his own image; his trademark outfit of camouflage jacket and keffiyah told the world, and his own people, that he was a warrior and a nationalist. When he got away from the spotlight, however, he used to take off this uniform. I was with him once on his private plane — a nerve-wracking experience since it was an ancient crock that used to shake throughout the flight and was generally full of hand grenades and machine guns — when he decided to change his clothes. I noticed that he had a hole in his vest and began to tease him about it. Surely the leader of the PLO could afford to have some decent clothes. He hurriedly pulled on a track suit and muttered that nobody could see what he had on underneath.
Arafat had no taste for luxury or the trappings of power — unlike today’s Palestinian leaders who like to drive luxury SUVs to their villas. He had only one real ambition in life: To liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation. He did have a weakness for confectionary, however, and his jacket pockets were usually full of caramels and halva (a sweet made from crushed sesame seed and honey). Arafat’s popularity began to wane when he signed the Oslo Peace Accords. I visited him at his Tunis headquarters in 1994 and we stayed up late into the night talking. He defended his decision to recognise Israel’s right to exist and to condemn armed struggle; I suggested that by ending the first intifada he had sold six years of bloodshed and bravery too cheaply. When I left at 3am, he reaffirmed his belief that his decision was correct. “In your lifetime,” he told me, “you will see the Israelis vacate our lands and it will be because of Oslo.” Sadly, 20 birthdays on, this seems an increasingly unlikely outcome ... for me at least.
Arafat longed to return to Palestine and the Oslo Accords enabled him to do so. He relocated first to Gaza and then Ramallah, but it cost him his life. He died besieged and humiliated, in all likelihood poisoned at the command of his nemesis: Ariel Sharon. Arafat’s dream was to be buried in Jerusalem; the Israelis refused permission. Now his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian National Authority President, has announced that a shrine to Arafat will be built in occupied Jerusalem, but Abbas has little chance of achieving such a controversial goal given that he has singularly failed to stand up to Tel Aviv on any important issues.
Unlike Abbas, Arafat would never have accepted last week’s storming of Al Aqsa Mosque by Israeli colonists, backed by police, without a fight. Nor would he have passively watched Israel’s illegal colonies mushroom to the extent that they now house 700,000 Jewish colonists on Arab land. So confident are the Israelis that these colonies will remain unchallenged that in May, Uri Ariel, Israel’s Housing and Construction Minister, said the colonies would increase by a further 50 per cent in the next five years, adding that “dreams of Palestinian statehood are in their death throes”. Abbas’s compliance with Tel Aviv — particularly in security matters — is deeply humiliating for the Palestinians and reinforces the Israelis’ sense of impunity.
Abbas’s mandate expired in 2009. Yet he cannot relinquish his position and the material benefits that accrue from it. He has appointed, or re-appointed, himself head of most Palestinian institutions, including the PLO, the Palestinian National Authority and the Fatah party. By controlling the gates to power as well as the purse strings, Abbas has created a political culture where no challenge to his authority is tolerated and there is no obvious, youthful successor waiting in the wings to lead the Palestinian struggle.
Arafat’s energy, resistance, individuality, charisma and sophisticated PR understanding made him a formidable opponent to the Israeli project. This is why Washington and Tel Aviv sidelined him in favour of Abbas who they perceived, rightly, as more malleable. And this is why he was assassinated. Ten years after his death, Arafat is perceived as an iconic figure, a Palestinian and Arab hero and a martyr.
The Palestinians may no longer have their messenger, but the message is not lost. The torch of freedom, justice and resistance that was lit by Arafat illuminates and inspires an expanding new generation of global citizens, informed by the independent media, social networks and digital news outlets. As it happened in South Africa, the world’s conscience will continue to challenge Israel until the dream of a free Palestine that Arafat inspired is, indeed, achieved.
Abdel Bari Atwan is the editor-in-chief of digital newspaper Rai alYoum: http://www.raialyoum.com. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@abdelbariatwan.
