The outpouring of tributes to Yasser Arafat is marked by two themes:
(1) his greatness as creator, sustainer and leader of the Palestinian
cause, and (2) the abrupt opening of an opportunity for its success
now that he is gone.
The fawning world leaders saying this seem oblivious to the obvious
paradox. If he was such a great leader, how is it that he left his
people so destitute, desperate, wounded and bereft that only his
passing gives them a hope for a fulfillment of their deepest
aspirations?
Yasser Arafat (1999
Photo/Kieran Doherty -- Reuters)
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Arafat's apologists explain this by saying that is because he had one
weakness: indecisiveness. In the end, he just could not pull the
trigger. When offered the deal of the century by Bill Clinton and Ehud
Barak at Camp David in 2000, he was somehow too conflicted, too
ambivalent to say yes.
Ambivalent? Nonsense. Yasser Arafat was supremely decisive and
single-minded. He was not complex and, regarding Israel's fate, never
conflicted. Indeed the reason for his success, such as it was --
creating the Palestinian movement from which he derived fortune, fame
and reverence -- was precisely his single-mindedness. Not about
Palestinian statehood -- if that was his objective, he could have had
his state years ago -- but about the elimination of Jewish statehood.
That was the theme of his entire life. Yes, he signed interim deals to
get a foothold in Palestine. But that was always with the objective of
continuing the fight from a better strategic position. It was never to
conclude a lasting compromise or real peace with Israel.
That is why he died so far from his promised land. This promised land
was never the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat founded Fatah in 1959 --
eight years before Israel even acquired these territories. His
objective then, and until the day he died, was a Palestinian state
built on the ruins of an eradicated Israel.
Bill Clinton was astonished when Arafat rejected the offer of a West
Bank and Gaza state, turning down the opportunity to be its George
Washington. Americans never understood that Arafat saw himself
completely differently: as an anti-imperialist revolutionary in the
mold of Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro. Like them, his motto
was "revolution unto victory." Total victory. No half loaf.
And given Israel's stubborn refusal to die, Arafat's cause became
sustaining the struggle -- the revolution -- indefinitely, almost as
an end in itself.
It is for this reason that, while Arafat's death does open a first
chance for peace since he took over the Palestinian movement four
decades ago, that chance remains remote. Why? Because the revolution
continues. Arafat made sure it would survive him. He created
Palestinian nationalism and shaped it in a revolutionary mold that
will take years, perhaps decades, to undo.
It is a legacy in two parts: means and ends. The means? Violence.
Arafat invented modern terrorism: airplane hijackings, kidnappings and
the spectacular mass murder, like the Olympic massacre of 1972. Others
had tried it. Arafat perfected it. He turned terrorism into a
brilliantly successful political instrument, a vehicle to
international recognition and respect. The man who murdered more
innocent Jews than anyone since Hitler died an international hero. The
president of France bowed to his casket. The secretary general ordered
U.N. flags to fly at half-staff.
Arafat also bequeathed a legacy of ends: uncompromising, irredentist
ends. He didn't just reject any settlement that would leave Israel
intact, thereby setting a precedent that any successor dare not
violate. He also raised a new generation to ensure that rejection.
Deploying every instrument of propaganda -- television, radio,
newspapers and, most importantly, schools and summer camps for
children -- his Palestinian Authority fed his people a diet of such
virulent anti-Semitism and denial of the Jewish connection with the
land that no successor will even be in position to contemplate
breaking Arafat's rejectionist precedent.
Arafat's most cherished achievement was to so poison the well that the
revolution -- until total victory -- continues long after he is gone.
As soon as he died, the most murderous terrorist wing of his Fatah
movement, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, changed its name to the Yasser
Arafat Martyrs Brigades.
They understood their master. Which is why the prospects for peace
upon his death are far more distant than the naifs (who got him wrong
all through his life) now insist. Arafat's legacy -- the
romanticization of violence, the rejection of Israel, the
indoctrination of a new generation in intolerance and hatred -- will
require a long time to undo. It will require years, perhaps even
generations. It will require brave new Palestinian leaders who are the
very antithesis of Yasser Arafat.
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