MideastWeb Middle East Web Log |
log | archives | middle east | maps | history | documents | countries | books | encyclopedia | culture | dialogue | links | timeline | donations |
Search: |
|
|
Yasser Arafat in past and future history11/11/2004 Yasser Arafat (see biography ) was the emblem and embodiment of Palestine, for better or worse. He was perhaps the last of the succession of larger than life heros or villains who were so plentiful in the twentieth century: Churchill, Hilter, Mussolini, Roosevelt Stalin, people who embodied a cause, for better or worse. It may be a long time, if ever, before history reaches a definitive verdict on Arafat. Historians are still arguing whether Napoleon and Julius Caesar were Great Men or Great Villains. For some historical superstars, the verdict came sooner. When the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died, he was the idol of over a billion people. In Israel, the daily Al Hamishmar headlined "The Sun of the Nations has Been Extinguished." Gradually, beginning with the destalinization speech of Nikita Krushchev at the Soviet 20th party congress in 1956, the truth about Stalin was revealed. After the breakup of the USSR, the full extent of Stalin's crimes, as well as the odious nature of his predecessor Lenin, became apparent to almost everyone. Is Napoleon to be remembered for waging senseless wars all over Europe or for spreading Liberty? Is Stalin remembered for fighting Nazism or for murdering tens of millions of his countrymen? Will Yasser Arafat be remembered for founding, in effect, the Palestinian nation, or for founding a legacy of terrorism, hatred and corruption based on ruthless elimination of opponents? Will Arafat be remembered as the father of the movement dedicated to elimination of Israel by armed struggle, or as the first Palestinian leader of note to recognize the existence of Israel and call for a Palestinian state existing side by side with Israel? Arafat's real name was Rahman Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, and he was probably born on August 4, or August 24 1929 in Cairo or the Gaza strip. His father was a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, and Arafat became associated with the Muslim brotherhood and with the al Futtuwah movement of Haj Amin El Husseini, his relative. In 1955 he was recruited by Egyptian intelligence to organize Palestinian students. In 1957 he moved to Kuwait and there he founded the Fatah movement, modeled on the Algerian FLN. Fatah helped catalyze the 1967 6-day war by prodding Arab leaders to action against Israel. The military disaster of the Arab countries brought Arafat and Fatah to the fore, and Arafat became head of the Palestine Liberation organization. His flamboyant style and tireless organizational activity, as well as the backing of the USSR, earned the Palestinian cause international recognition and made him "Mr Palestine." In 1993 he negotiated a tentative agreement with Israel, the Oslo accords, which enabled him to return to Palestine. However, the accords failed to turn into a peace agreement. Arafat and his colleagues acquiesced or connived in terror attacks. Palestinian media emitted a constant barrage of incitement against Israel. In 2000 Arafat refused a peace offer brokered by US President Clinton and reneged on his commitment to abandon terrorism, marking the beginning of the "Al-Aqsa intifada." Arafat's rise to power was aided by ruthless elimination of opponents in the student organizations and refugee camps and by terror exploits against Israeli civilian targets. Israelis loathed him for his terror tactics, and turned him into the personifaction of "the obstacle to peace." Palestinian opponents including Edward Said and others protested against his undemocratic leadership. Many will revile him for his faults, others will remember his leadership and shrug off his misdeeds with excuses like "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs." Arafat's death, like his life, has been purposely shrouded in mystery and it has been accompanied by recriminations. Suha Arafat, his wife, charged that the Palestinian leadership was trying to bury him alive. Heeding the request of Suha Arafat, authorities in France, where he is hospitalized, refused to give details of Arafat's illness, leading to persistent rumors that he had been poisoned, though French doctors claimed they had ruled out the possibility of poison. Others claimed, equally speculatively, that Arafat had AIDS.
For the Palestinians, the question of how Arafat will be viewed in history both depends upon and influences the struggle for leadership and establishment of national goals. With Arafat's departure, all Palestinian factions are striving to claim him as their leader, and to shape his message to their own ideological needs. The probable leaders of the PLO and the Palestine National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qurei, will strive to emphasis Arafat as the father of Palestinian recognition of Israel and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994, as well as the father of the PLO and Palestinian national identity. The extremist Hamas, his enemies in life, have all but claimed Arafat as one of their own, a Palestinian leader dedicated to destroying Israel by force. Hamas spokesman Khaled Mashaal, said:
Arafat's success was as much the doing of his enemies as of himself. Israel, like Arafat's other enemies, has never managed the phenomonon of Arafat well. Arafat's career fed on Israeli opposition as well as on Israeli acceptance and legitimation of the PLO and Arafat in the Oslo Accords. By fighting Arafat and the Fatah at Karameh in 1968, Israel made the Fatah and its leader into the symbol of Palestinian resistance. Banished from Jordan in 1970, Arafat rose in Beirut; banished from Lebanon by Israel in 1982, Arafat again rose like the Phoenix from the ashes, legitimized and given international prominence by his Zionist enemies in 1993. The disaster of the "second Intifada" again brought Arafat's popularity to a low ebb in 2002, but surrounded by the Israelis in the Muqata, Arafat again became a Palestinian national hero. Perhaps his death, his final downfall, will also be the lever of a success greater than any he achieved in life. For Israelis, the death of Arafat may open new vistas for peace, or it may signal danger if a leaderless Palestinian society disintegrates into chaos and violence, as the violence will undoubtedly be directed against Israel. For those Israelis who built up Arafat as "the obstacle to peace," his death is a test of whether, with the supposed or actual obstacle to peace removed, they will now begin to negotiate for peace in earnest. Likewise, time will tell whether in fact Arafat was the obstacle preventing the Palestinians from suppressing terror groups and negotiating a fair peace deal. Ami Isseroff
Original text copyright by the author and MidEastWeb for Coexistence, RA. Posted at MidEastWeb Middle East Web Log at http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000312.htm where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Distributed by MEW Newslist. Subscribe by e-mail to mew-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Please forward by email with this notice and link to and cite this article. Other uses by permission. |
|
Replies: 9 comments we don't have to wait for history to judge him. most of the world's leaders are already whitewashing this mass murderer, calling him 'courageous', 'a man of peace', 'a great leader', and other such undeserved accolades. it is a travesty of truth and justice to refer to this monster as anything other than what he was...an unrepentant terrorist whose political policies were based on slaughtering innocent civilians, not only in Israel but in Jordan and Lebanon. he should be buried with a pig, except that would be an insult to the animal! Posted by mike levine @ 11/12/2004 09:20 AM CST The only people who demonise Arafat are the Israelis and the Americans. This should tell us something about the likely verdict of history. He was a man with many flaws, but also the undisputed popular leader of his people and a symbol of their legitimate national aspirations. It's the people and the aspirations which are really offensive to the Israeli right, to avoid acknowledging this they caricature Arafat as a monster. The Palestinian struggle is not about one man, and it will continue until the Israelis are brave and honest enough to offer a just peace. Posted by Chris @ 11/12/2004 05:45 PM CST I think he was not a "man of peace". He was certainly "courageous" and a "leader" ("great" or not depens on what you mean with "great"). He was not a "mass murderer" and inside PLO he was one of the "moderates" (i.e. realistic). He must be judged by comparison with PFLF, DFLP and the rest of radical branches who try to kill him many times, not to say if you compare with Hamas and Yihad. In camp David he thought that the Barak proposal was not worthwile of a bloody palestinian civil war (that he would probably have lost because palestinian population mainly shared this view). He did enormous mistakes some of them criminal. He was utilized to sustain the mith of the "lost opportunity" that for some people justifies any current and future excess on Israel side. Now he is dead and history is a science wich tries to understand without judging. Each one of us have his opinion about him. Mine is much less black&white than Mike's one but all are legitimate as opinions. And we must work to not make this famous "lost opportunity" the last opportunity ever once he is no more there to be blamed. Posted by Aleph @ 11/12/2004 06:24 PM CST Instead of a eulogy: The death of Arafat makes me feel hopeful, not sad or worried. He led his followers into a political dead end while he became the obstacle to change course. Arafat helped unify the Palestinians under one cause and generate world wide recognition for their problems and aspirations. He failed to capitalize on the world’s good will and do what true leaders do: compromise one’s personal goals for the benefit of their people. Arafat’s cause has always been more about rejecting Israel than about a positive vision of better life for the Palestinians. Fifty-six years ago Israel started as a refugee state; it is now a powerhouse in technology, education, science and arts and has made these achievements under very demanding conditions. Arafat has refused to begin the building of a nation for his people, unless all of his claims (including the destruction of Israel) are satisfied. In retrospect, Arafat’s vision has been irresponsible and unrealistic; he has left the Palestinians with nothing, but a legacy of death worship and destruction. Israel has made many mistakes with the Palestinians, but all of them have been debated in an open society. In contrast, the parties who had more at stake here, Arafat and the Palestinians, made monumentally greater mistakes, bordering on criminal acts. Under Arafat, Palestinian society was neither open nor free to debate these issues and mandate a change. I hope that the Palestinians can seize the moment for opportunity now, see past Arafat’s failed vision and change direction. Israel will follow through. The US and Europe will follow through. Zvigoldman@hotmail.com Posted by Zvi Goldman @ 11/13/2004 07:43 PM CST
The now-departed Arafat’s personal quest to destroy the Jewish presence in the Middle East began as an Egyptian terrorist long before the state of Israel (or “the Palestinian people”) came into existence. On his murderous path to winning the Nobel Prize for Peace, he successfully brought terrorism to world attention, pioneering the innovation of hijacking and blowing up airplanes in the 1970's. As a direct result of his lifelong anti-Zionist campaign, hundreds of innocent men, women, and children from all over the world were slaughtered for the achievement of his political objectives. Posted by Dan @ 11/14/2004 01:01 AM CST
The now-departed Arafat’s personal quest to destroy the Jewish presence in the Middle East began as an Egyptian terrorist long before the state of Israel (or “the Palestinian people”) came into existence. On his murderous path to winning the Nobel Prize for Peace, he successfully brought terrorism to world attention, pioneering the innovation of hijacking and blowing up airplanes in the 1970's. As a direct result of his lifelong anti-Zionist campaign, hundreds of innocent men, women, and children from all over the world were slaughtered for the achievement of his political objectives. Posted by Dan @ 11/14/2004 01:01 AM CST
I hope with all my heart that there will now be peace in the middle east and all terriose are charged with murder Posted by lorraine @ 11/15/2004 02:17 AM CST Arafat had achieved recognition of Palestinian identity. He had given them recognition as a nation in the world. Perhaps this was really his sole achievement.He was an autocratic ruler, keeping the cards very close to his chest. He had done very little to improve the standard of living of his people. Education of the younger generation was reduced to anti-Israel propaganda and hate. All in all, the Palestinians had suffered much under his rule. The corruption in the Palestinian Authority was rife and there was definite misappropriation of funds that were targeted for the Palestinian people. He was a master of survival and, even though he paid lip service to Israel's recognition, in practice he was indifferent to terrorist attacks against Israel's citizens. It is possible that he had no choice as he did not want to jeopardize his life at the hands of Palestinian terrorist groups. His life style - frugal as it was despite the millions of dollars that he had in various investments all over Europe, endeared him to his people as the eternal revolutionary fighting for his peoples' liberation from the Israeli occupation. At least it appeared so especially after his death. It will take a long time before Arafat's influence on his people can be assessed wih any accuracy. One thing is certain and that is there will be great instability because he had never groomed anybody to take over from him when he was no longer able to rule. Posted by Shimon Z. Klein @ 11/15/2004 01:41 PM CST Yasser Arafat is effectively the father of the Palestinian nation. We tend to see in him the ruthless terrorist shoved down our brain by the american media but lets think for a minute: how else would would palestine react to to all the agresion of israel it not by what we call terrorism. What makes the diference between war and terrorism? Is it the technology we use to kill? Posted by Virgilio Melgar @ 11/27/2004 06:23 AM CST Please do not leave notes for MidEastWeb editors here. Hyperlinks are not displayed. We may delete or abridge comments that are longer than 250 words, or consist entirely of material copied from other sources, and we shall delete comments with obscene or racist content or commercial advertisements. Comments should adhere to Mideastweb Guidelines . IPs of offenders will be banned. |
[Previous entry: "Barak: "I am back""] Main Index [Next entry: "After Arafat - A New Era?"]
ALL PREVIOUS MidEastWeb Middle East LOG ENTRIES
Thank you for visiting MidEastWeb - Middle East.
If you like what you see here, tell others about the MidEastWeb Middle East Web Log - www.mideastweb.org/log/.
Copyright
Editors' contributions are copyright by the authors and MidEastWeb for Coexistence RA.
Please link to main article pages and tell your friends about MidEastWeb. Do not copy MidEastWeb materials to your Web Site. That is a violation of our copyright. Click for copyright policy.
MidEastWeb and the editors are not responsible for content of visitors' comments.
Please report any comments that are offensive or racist.
Editors can log in by clicking here
|