|
untitled
Last Updated: Friday, November 12th, 2004 HOME | Previous Page
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arafat: Demise of an icon
By Onche Odeh
Reporter, Lagos
At last the man died. This is a quip that suits what many may describe as the end of an instituion personalized
in the man people love to call Yasser Arafat.
The demise of the founder and leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), an organisation dedicated
to the struggle for the �emancipation� of the Palestinian people from the strong hold of Israel was eventually
announced 3.30am of Thursday after days of coma.
Arafat, an exemplification of bravery showed what a man he was known for as he took the battle of life to the point
of death. He survived several assassination attempts by Israeli leaders, and a plane crash among other close shaves
he had with death. But, he finally let go the last of his many lives on Thursday.
Never in recent times has the death of a leader been greeted with emotions as that of Arafat.
Revered as the beacon of Palestinian statehood but reviled as a sponsor of terrorism, he may have died an unfulfilled
man because most of his aspirations and dreams for Palestine, especially as it has to do with entrenchment of peace
in the troubled Middle East region remained largely unfulfilled.
He was more of as a symbol of peace in the region, especially by his constituents, the people of Palestine. Howver,
Israel never ceased to see him as public enemy number one and paints a picture that tells of the PLO leader as
a terrorist, murderer and a major roadblock to peace.
Whatever the impression of this celebrated winner of the1994 Nobel Price for Peace may be, his demise will obviously
marked the end of an era in modern Middle East history, as it has also prompted calls from World leaders including
President Bush of the United States for the people to seize the moment to spur new efforts at Israeli-Palestinian
peacemaking.
A wave of grief quickly swept across the West Bank and Gaza Strip after Arafat died in a French military hospital.
Thousands of Palestinians ran into the streets, clutching his photograph, crying and wondering about their future
without the man who embodied their struggle for statehood.
Arafat was viewed as Palestine personified, an icon that stood all tides as well a forerunner of peace in the troubled
Middle East
Black smoke from burning tyres rose across the Gaza Strip, gunmen fired into the air in grief. And Palestinian
flags at Arafat's battered compound were lowered at half mast. Church bells rang out, and Quranic verses were played
for hours over mosque loudspeakers. The high point was the announcement of 40 days of mourning for Arafat.
Perhaps afraid that the mourning could rapidly turn to rioting, Israel quickly sealed the West Bank and Gaza Strip
and increased security at Jewish settlements.
French President Jacques Chirac, United Nations Secretary General, Koffi Annan, British Prime Minsiter, Tony Blair
and former US president, Bill Clinton are among notable figures across the world that have sang a syrupy song of
the Palestinian leader.
But others questioned Arafat's legacy.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Arafat could have helped secure Middle East peace by accepting a deal
in 2000 that would have resulted in the Israelis agreeing to about 90 percent of what the Palestinians had wanted,"
Howard said.
He also said Arafat could have done more to restrain terrorists.
Arafat was flown to a French military hospital in Clamart, outside of Paris, on October 29 after his health began
deteriorating last month. It was the first time in nearly three years that he left his compound in Ramallah, where
he was held a virtual prisoner by Israel.
Palestinian officials initially insisted he had a lingering case of the flu, but they grew increasingly concerned
when he did not recover.
Neither his doctors nor Palestinian leaders would say what killed him.
"He closed his eyes and his big heart stopped. He left for God but he is still among this great people,"
said senior Arafat aide Tayeb Abdel Rahim, who broke into tears as he announced Arafat's death.
The Israeli military said it would restrict access to the burial, allowing only Palestinians with permits to attend,
but would allow mourners to hold processions in towns and refugee camps.
As much as his life was filled with controversy, so too was Arafat's death.
The Palestinians had demanded Arafat be buried in Jerusalem on the disputed holy site that once held the biblical
Jewish temples and now the Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine.
Israel refused, fearing a Jerusalem burial would strengthen Palestinians' claims to a city they envision as a capital
of a future Palestinian state.
In a compromise, the Palestinians agreed to bury him at his compound in Ramallah, battered and strewn with rubble
from repeated Israeli raids. But they plan to line his grave with soil taken from the Al Aqsa Mosque compound,
said Ahmed Ghneim, a Fatah leader, and he is to be interred in a cement box, so he can be moved to Jerusalem for
burial when the opportunity presents itself.
Seldom in public without his military uniform and his checkered keffiyeh headdress, Arafat kept the Palestinians'
cause at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But he fell short of creating a Palestinian state, and, along
with other secular Arab leaders, he saw his influence weakened by the rise of radical Islam in recent times.
Revered by his own people, Arafat was reviled by others. He was accused of secretly fomenting attacks on Israelis
while proclaiming brotherhood and claiming to have put terrorism aside. Many Israelis felt the paunchy 5-foot,
2-inch Palestinian's real goal remained the destruction of the Jewish state.
Arafat became one of the world's most familiar faces after addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York in
1974, when he entered the chamber wearing a holster and carrying a twig.
"Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from
my hand," he said.
Two decades later, he shook hands at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on a peace deal
that formally recognized Israel's right to exist while granting the Palestinians limited self-rule in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. The pact led to the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for Arafat, Rabin and then-Foreign Minister Shimon
Peres.
But the accord quickly unraveled amid mutual suspicions and accusations of treaty violations. A new round of violence
that erupted in the fall of 2000 has killed some 4,000 people, three-quarters of them Palestinians.
The Israeli and U.S. governments said Arafat deserved much of the blame for the derailing of the peace process.
Even many of his own people began whispering against Arafat, expressing disgruntlement over corruption, lawlessness
and a bad economy in the Palestinian areas.
A resilient survivor of war with Israel, assassination attempts even a plane crash, Arafat was born Rahman Abdel-Raouf
Arafat Al-Qudwa on Aug. 4, 1929, the fifth of seven children of a Palestinian merchant killed in the 1948 war over
Israel's creation. There is disagreement whether he was born in Gaza or in Cairo.
Educated as an engineer in Egypt, Arafat served in the Egyptian army and then started a construction firm in Kuwait.
It was there that he founded the Fatah movement, which became the core of the PLO.
After the Arabs' humbling defeat by Israel in the six-day war of 1967, the PLO thrust itself on the world's front
pages by sending its gunmen out to hijack airplanes, machine gun airports and kill Israeli athletes at the 1972
Summer Olympics.
"As long as the world saw Palestinians as no more than refugees standing in line for U.N. rations, it was
not likely to respect them. Now that the Palestinians carry rifles the situation has changed," Arafat explained.
Late Tuesday, Palestinians congregated in mosques and public places across the West Bank and Gaza for a night of
worship, adding special prayers for their ailing leader. But their prayers could not pull back their adored leader
from the journey to the great beyond.
Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets, holding teary, spontaneous candlelight vigils. In Gaza City's Square
of the Unknown Soldier, young men and members of Arafat's Fatah party gathered, lighting candles and praying for
their stricken leader.
Many of them cried as they openly express their wishes that their adored lead lived.
Hundreds of posters of Arafat decorated the walls of his Ramallah headquarters. One read: "Yasser Arafat is
the whole people and the people don't die."
This is what Arafat, now of blessed memory stands for.
Implications of his death
The death of Arafat, who ruled firmly over squabbling Palestinian factions for four decades, left Palestinians
without a strong leader for the first time. It raised concern that the scramble to claim Arafat's mantle could
fragment the Palestinian leadership or spark chaos and factional fighting in the streets.
Analysts have said this will definitely take the focus off the PLO as personified in Arafat to an institutional
body without a definite figurative representation of the body.
In a hurried effort to project continuity, the PLO elected former Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas as its
new chief, virtually ensuring that he will succeed Arafat as leader of the Palestinians, at least in the short
term.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has shunned his longtime �nemesis� as a terrorist and obstructionist,
said Arafat's death could serve as a historic turning point in the Middle East and expressed hope the Palestinians
would now work to stop terrorism. In a sign of the enmity the two men shared even in death, Sharon refused to mention
Arafat by name in his reaction to his death, insisting that with Arafat at the helm it was impossible to discuss
peace with the Palestinians.
However, his death has been viewed as a prelude to a swifter peace process in the middle east, especially as two
of the world strongest leaders, Bush and Blair are to meet on Friday to discuss issues on the ensuring a sustainable
peace deal in the region.
Analysts have also argued that his death would lead to the sprouting of more oppositions among the Palestinians,
as he provided a standpole for unification among his people.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright© 2004. All Rights Reserved.
Independent Newspapers Limited
Block5, Plot 7D, Wempco Road, Ogba, P.M.B. 21777, Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria.
www.independentng.com
e-mail: [email protected]
Designed By
Powered By DNet.
|
|
