With the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, it is worth examining his legacy and the possible implications his demise will have on the seemingly hopeless Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization for 30 years, lay comatose in a Parisian hospital before his eventual death. Ironically, the French, with their long documented history of anti-Semitism, provided Arafat, a virulent hater of Jews in his own right, with medical treatment and assistance. To top it off, Jacque Chirac, the president of France, even had the audacity to call Arafat a “friend.”
Despicable.
In Arafat’s last few days, uncertainty and confusion reigned over his condition because of his wife’s refusal to disclose his medical status to other Palestinian leaders, the Palestinian people and the world. In a bizarre twist, Sua Arafat, Yasser Arafat’s wife, accused significant members of the P.L.O. of “trying to bury her husband alive” and called on young Palestinian militants to continue pursuing terrorism while ignoring established P.L.O. leadership.
The confusion, chaos and mayhem that surrounded Yasser Arafat’s death is a fitting end to a political career that ignited and guided chaos and mayhem for decades.
Arafat, the symbol of hope and resistance for countless Palestinians, accomplished absolutely nothing substantial for the Palestinian people. Palestinians still remain without a legitimate state with legitimate borders and legitimate leadership. Their inability to establish a recognized nation must rest squarely on Arafat’ s shoulders.
In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton invited Arafat and Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak to Camp David to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Barak, a former Israeli Mossad agent, was poised to grant the Palestinians a sovereign state, covering 90 percent of the West Bank and Gaza. Yet Arafat balked, demonstrating his unwillingness to see an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even if it meant the formation of a nation for his people. In many observers’ eyes, the existence of Arafat necessarily eliminated any plausible chance of peace.
Rather than being remembered as the visionary and diplomat who created a Palestinian state, perhaps Arafat wanted to be remembered for his ruthless and egregious acts of terrorism. If so, there is ample evidence to persuade anyone from thinking otherwise.
In the mid-1960s, as the P.L.O. began to form, Arafat recruited and managed terrorist raids into Israeli territory, killing innocent civilians and new settlers. In 1972, at the Munich Olympics, a group called Black September brutally murdered 11 Israeli Olympic athletes. The group’s leader repeatedly told the press that Arafat’s Fatah organization had provided the necessary funds to carry out the operation. Into the late ’90s and early 21st century, Arafat is believed to have personally approved and orchestrated the hijacking of airplanes, suicide bombings and other heinous acts of terror against Jews.
The drama that unfolded between Sua Arafat and members of the P.L.O. hierarchy spoke volumes about what a sham the P.L.O. really is. Ms. Arafat, who resides in Paris, had not seen her husband in three years before he became gravely ill. She withheld such basic information about Arafat’s health so that prominent members of the P.L.O. had to come to Paris to gauge his condition for themselves. Ms. Arafat, who receives almost $100,000 monthly from P.L.O. resources, has denounced these leaders as illegitimate and unfit to lead a “revolution.”
Who is in charge of the P.L.O.? Arafat’s wife? P.L.O. Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei? Drunk with power until the end, Arafat left the P.L.O. in disarray because he refused to let go. He refused to let go of the idea that he was mythical warrior, leading his people to freedom and universal recognition. How history will judge him differently.
A power-thirsty megalomaniac, Arafat drove the Palestinian people into the ground. Though a perpetrator of malicious acts against Jews and Israelis for decades, he never managed to achieve his primary and most lofty goal: driving Israel into the sea. With all of its wounds and scars, Israel has remained a beacon of hope and freedom in a land of ruthless and pernicious opportunists. Yasser Arafat’s death will bring new possibilities of peace and hope to a place that desperately needs it right now.
Josh Moskowitz ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in political science and journalism.
