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The conflict without Arafat
Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, November 9, 2004
The imminent passing of Yasser Arafat will mark the beginning of a new era in the Arab-Israeli conflict. For a century, Palestinian national politics has been dominated by two men: Hajj Amin al-Husseini led the Palestinian national movement from the 1920s to the 1950s, while Arafat emerged in the mid-1960s. Arafat is credited for forging a Palestinian national identity, but the credit should go the Palestinian people. The Palestinian national movement produced Arafat, not vice versa. But Arafat was responsible for leading an independent national movement after decades of Arab governments' control of Palestinian organizations. Arafat reflected Palestinian desires for sovereignty and independent decision-making, although his efforts were not quite successful.
Arafat's flaws emerged very early in his leadership of the Fatah movement (the main organization of the Palestine Liberation Organization), where his comrades often tried to unseat him, only to be outmaneuvered by this shrewd and deceptive politician. He was faulted for his autocratic tendencies, his secret channels, his propensity toward exaggeration and bombast, his exploitation of internal Palestinian differences to his advantage and his complete reliance on Arab Gulf regimes to fund his adventures and to use in political manipulation.
To his credit, Arafat never manifested personal weaknesses or love of luxuries, at a time when the influx of oil money corrupted many Arab revolutionaries. But he tolerated corruption in the PLO, and later in the Palestinian Authority, in order to play off factions and personalities against one another. His appointments were consistently not based on merit or competence, but on loyalty and allegiance. This showed in the utterly useless and ineffective bureaucracy that he had helped create.
Israel and America claim that Arafat is responsible for Palestinian radicalism and violence. The death of Arafat will remove an easy excuse and simplistic explanation from the arsenal of Israeli propaganda. Just like Hajj Amin Husseini before him, Arafat is less radical and less militant than his people. He in fact has played a moderating influence in the Palestinian national movement, which explains why he is viewed as a sellout or even a traitor by many Palestinians and Arabs.
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Now there will be no Arafat to kick around, as Richard Nixon famously claimed of himself. The United States and Israel will have to find another Palestinian to blame, and to hold responsible for all Palestinian political violence. It is easier for Israel to blame one man for Palestinian political violence than blame what Zionism and Israel have inflicted on the Palestinian people. Palestinian leaders will come and go, and Palestinian suffering will continue as long as Israel -- and the United States behind it -- continue to deny Palestinian national rights, insist on occupying Palestinian lands and reject the Palestinian refugees' right of return.
It is certain that no one man (or woman) will emerge as the sole undisputed Palestinian leader in the near future. That will take years. All potential successors have been killed -- one by one -- by Israel over the years. A few other possible successors have been undermined by Israeli and American preference for them. That would doom the chances for President Bush's favorite, Mahmoud Abbas (nom de guerre Abu Mazen). It is more likely that several leaders and factions will compete to dominate Palestinian policies and plans. That will only ensure that the future path of Palestinian politics will be more -- perhaps much more -- radical and militant than what we witnessed in the era of Arafat. There may come a time when Israel and the United States look back and consider Arafat a statesman in comparison with what may transpire in the post-Arafat era.
But Arafat's legacy is marred by his political failures. He tried too hard to please his enemies (Israel, the United States and Arab regimes) while failing to fully satisfy his people's desires for freedom and independence. He was too dependent on the Gulf oil money, which compromised the Palestinian revolution, and allowed him to use the weapon of money to his own political advantage. He also allowed Palestinian strategy to be compromised by virtue of his back-channel relationships and deals with Israel and the United States (most notably the secret negotiating process that led to Oslo agreements I and II, over which the Palestinian people were not consulted). Arafat was not a true revolutionary: He chanted revolutionary slogans while he ruled like a traditional autocrat, resisting progressive reforms (although his record shines compared to the record of America's favorite Arab rulers). To be sure, he may be the only Arab leader who was freely elected by his people, and yet Bush singles him out as the one Arab leader that he cannot deal with.
With or without Arafat, the Palestinian struggle for independence and freedom -- real freedom and not Bush's slogans about freedom -- will continue. The United States and Israel should not, and cannot, interfere in the selection of Palestinian leaders. If anything, any Palestinian who is seen as the product of an Israeli/American preference will be automatically discredited by his people.
The United States and Israel should show respect for Palestinian self- determination by allowing the Palestinian people to hold their free elections, away from daily Israeli subjugation and humiliations of the population under occupation. The Bush administration has violated long-standing U.S. policy of opposing any unilateral acts by any party to the conflict by permitting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to continue in land grabs, bombardment of Palestinian towns and camps and construction of the humiliating separation barrier. Such acts will push any and every Palestinian -- whether a lay person or leader -- in the direction of militancy and radicalism.