 Arafat
- Flawed symbol
of Palestine
Yasser Arafat is the unchallenged leader of the
Palestinian people; and with his instantly recognisable
face he is the symbol of their struggle for statehood.
For decades he has
carried on his shoulders the burden of that struggle. But
his pathological refusal to share power or delegate
responsibility is taking a toll on his health and is
weakening popular support.
 Arafat
is, without question, the Palestinians' greatest asset.
But with the peace process still failing to live up to
expectations, more and more Palestinians are losing
patience with his mercurial and dictatorial style of
leadership.
Mythmaker:
From
his earliest days, Arafat has indulged in exaggeration and
the weaving of myths about his life, insisting, for
example, that he was born in Jerusalem even though his
birth, in 1929, is clearly recorded in Egypt.
As a young man he was,
according to one biographer, "a natural
publicist" and a workaholic. At the same time, he
developed an obsessive desire to be leader of the pack and
to get his way. The end always justified the means.
Beirut 1982: The
man, the myth
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As early as 1959, as
Palestinian exiles in Kuwait were forming Fatah, later to
be the biggest group within the PLO, Arafat was only
playing lip service to the idea of collective leadership.
Two years later his
contemporaries noticed how he "exercised total
control over the Fatah war chest and how he bribed people
to join him." But to his credit, he did more than
anyone else to put the Palestinians' cause on the world
agenda. Arab regimes were clearly not prepared to act to
help the Palestinians.
Military campaign:
Led
by Arafat, the PLO took up arms themselves, hijacking
airliners and committing other acts of violence.
As a military leader,
Arafat often led the way into action against the Israelis.
When backs were against the wall, at war with Jordan in
1970 or under siege in Beirut in 1982, Arafat never lacked
for personal courage.
Return to Gaza
after more than 20 years exile
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His goal has always been
independence for the Palestinians, with himself as
president.
To these ends he has used
threats and intimidation as to ensure that he alone should
hold the reins of power. And thus it is today in the
Palestinian territories.
Errors of judgement:
But
Arafat made one critical mistake for which he is paying
dearly. By supporting Saddam Hussein after the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait in 1990, he lost vital funding from the
Gulf oil states. When Iraq lost the Gulf war, the PLO
found itself penniless and friendless.
Arafat had no choice but
to make peace with Israel. But very soon he had played all
his cards, leaving such fundamental issues as Jewish
settlements and the future of Jerusalem undecided.
Exactly how weak the
Palestinian position was became clear when Yitzhak Rabin
was assassinated by an Israeli student opposed to handing
over West Bank land to the Palestinians for peace.
Netanyahu: Arafat's Nemesis
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The right-wing Likud bloc
came to power in elections the following year determined
to "lower the expectations" of the Palestinians.
There was little Arafat could do but accept whatever he
was offered.
It is possible,
therefore, that Arafat will die before achieving his
life-long goals. If so, he will die a broken man, and his
flawed personality will be in large part to blame.
Arafat is a brilliant
leader but a hopeless organiser and negotiator. When the
peace process began, he refused to delegate, fearing that
a successful negotiator could represent a threat to his
leadership.
(Courtesy: BBC)
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