Yasser Arafat (1929-2004) - Obituary

international | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis

Thursday November 11, 2004 16:53

by Israeli Socialist

Palestinians mourn Arafat but struggle for liberation will continue

Many Palestinians will view the death of Yasser Arafat with a mixture of sadness and a wish that the Palestinian Authority he led, had done much more to end the poverty and oppression that blights their lives.

Whatever doubts some Palestinians may have had about his leadership they will see in his death, a snapshot of the brutal oppression and tenuous existence they face on a daily basis. Arafat remained a virtual prisoner in his compound for three years, a situation which undoubtedly contributed to the illnesses from which he died.

Yasser Arafat is seen by most Palestinians as a symbol of the longstanding Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation. His past as a guerilla leader since the 1960s as one of the founders of the Fatah organization and the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organisation) gave him a special status among the Palestinian masses. It is hard for many Palestinians to think who could play the same role or have the same authority as Yasser Arafat.

But while respect will be shown for the role he played amongst many Palestinians, there will be others who rightly question Arafat’s (and the other PLO leaders’) tactics and strategy in attempting to win Palestinian national liberation. In the earlier years of Fatah and the PLO this was armed attacks by secretive guerilla groups as opposed to mass action by the working class and peasantry armed for self-defence. Later on Arafat and other leaders attempted to form diplomatic alliances with corrupt Arab regimes and negotiate with imperialist powers.

Black September
When Arafat was faced with a revolutionary situation, he unfortunately betrayed such movements. September 1970 in Jordan was one such example where large sections of Palestinians and Jordanians rose up against the corrupt regime of King Hussein. Arafat and the PLO leaders could have led a revolutionary struggle for power which would have changed the whole face of the Middle East. Instead Arafat made concessions to King Hussein and tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed in the retribution by the Jordanian army that followed.

After the war and the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s, Arafat and most of the PLO leadership escaped to exile in Tunis. Exile meant that they no longer had the same intimate connection with the Palestinians and also alienated them from the conditions that the majority of Palestinian faced.

The distance between the Palestinian masses and the leadership based in exile was clearly demonstrated at the beginning of the first Intifada. The PLO leadership in exile was completely taken by surprise by this event, as was the Israeli regime. The first Intifada provided the basis for the growth of a new leadership from below in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. After the signing of the Oslo agreement brought the Tunis leadership back to the Occupied Territories, tensions and disagreements developed between it and the local leadership which have remained in different forms up to the present day.

At the beginning of the 1990s the pace of the Intifada had slowed as a consequence of years of struggle without the defeat of the Israeli military occupation of the territories. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the support of the Fatah for Sadam Husain during the first Gulf War left the PLO isolated and financially bankrupt.

Under the pressure of US imperialism, which feared future upheavals in the region, the Israeli ruling class took advantage of the PLO’s weakened position to force it into negotiations and to accept the Oslo agreement. This deal was never meant to give the Palestinians national liberation. It was designed to grant a Bantustan-type prison existence to the Palestinian masses with the Palestinian Authority acting as guards and the Israeli state as prison governor.

The Israeli ruling class preferred to deal with the old weak leadership from Tunis which was not as militant as the leadership on the ground. Arafat's regime represented the capitalist interests of the Palestinian elite and was totally dependent on the Israeli ruling class for its existence. As such it could not and never intended to solve the problems of the Palestinians.

The standard of living under the PA regime declined severely hand in hand with the continuing oppression by the Israeli Defence Forces. At the same time a small elite enriched itself on the expense of the masses. Without any solution to the problems of daily life the peace process couldn't last for long. This was the basis for the second Intifada.

Second Intifada
The second Intifada was aimed against both the Israeli regime and in a distorted way the PA. The first reaction of the PA leadership was to condemn this outburst of the Palestinian masses. Only after they saw they could not hold back the movement, they tried to take the lead of the intifada.

Over the last few years the Israeli blockade on Arafat in Ramallah, gave him back the status of a symbol of the Palestinian resistance.

However, despite the fact that for many years Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, yearned for Arafat's death, the news about Arafat's life-threatening illness came at a very inconvenient time for him. In addition to the fear of being blamed for his death, and the affect it might have on the Palestinian street, the death of Arafat actually poses serious questions concerning the strategy of the Israeli ruling class.

For the last few years the main claim of the Israeli regime was that Arafat is an obstacle to any negotiation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. This was one of the main arguments Sharon used to justify the disengagement plan.

The death of Arafat could lead to events which dramatically change the situation in Israel and he PA. Many names have been mentioned as candidates to replace Arafat as the PA president and the leader of the PLO and Fatah: Abu Alla, Abu Mazen, Muhamad Dahlan, even Faruq Kadumi (who opposed the Oslo agreement at first) and Marwan Baraguti who has sat in an Israeli jail for more than 2 years and holds credit for that in the Palestinian street. But none of them have the credit Arafat had as a symbol and a guerilla fighter.

Even during Arafat's life we saw early struggles over the future control of the Gaza strip, when last summer Dahlan's faction in Fatah challenged the control of Arafat's armed forces.

More complicated
Now the situation has became more complicated, since Hamas have also laid a claim for a share in governing the PA. Hamas enjoy mass support in Gaza, but if it became part of the PA this might change over the long run and could cause enormous pressure to be exerted on the PA by the imperialist powers who could oppose its inclusion.

Other issues might bring clashes quite quickly – even before his death there was a demand by the PA for him to be buried at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem which was ruled out by the Israeli authorities. Whatever the eventual decision on this issue, the main question will be that the funeral will be accompanied by a mass presence of Palestinians on the streets in a situation which will not be fully under the control of the PA.

At the end of October Sharon won the vote on the disengagement plan in the Knesset (Israeli parliament). The Israeli ruling class wants to withdraw from the Gaza strip, but many of the Likud MPs from Sharon's party are opposed which has exerted huge pressure on the Prime Minister. Four of Likud's ministers tried to ambush Sharon during the voting.

Sharon suffers from a lack of support inside his party, and his governmental coalition includes less than half of all MPs and therefore the government is unstable.

At the moment he claims that nothing has changed since the death of Arafat, but there is strong pressure from inside the Likud for canceling the disengagement plan and going back to negotiations with a new future partner.

The option of a government of national unity is still open but it seems like the next general elections in Israel are only a matter of a short time away.

The death of Arafat has released forces of instability that were hidden beneath the surface, building up for a long time. These pressures did not develop because of the personality of Arafat but because of the inability of capitalism and imperialism to solve the daily problems of Palestinian and Israeli workers.

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Comments (14 of 14)

And then...

by Gar

Thu Nov 11, 2004 17:16

And then in 2004 Israel poisened him. The end.

The Truth About Arafat

by yasser

Thu Nov 11, 2004 19:06

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/11/arafat_the_monster/

Now Now lets be balanced, and not forgeting

by Quickly

Thu Nov 11, 2004 19:39

the tens of thousands of Palestine men women and children murdered and injured at the hands of the Israeli State which are now soaked in their blood.

noel nescience

by kintama

Fri Nov 12, 2004 00:04

noel will no doubt be able to provide the credible evidence for his insulting and deliberately provocative claim that he demands in relation to the murderous activities of Sharon and the 'IDF'.
I have seen much less offensive, racist vitriol removed from this site in the past.

And then - Vanunu re-arrested

by Justin Morahan - Peace People

Fri Nov 12, 2004 00:42

No sooner had Yasser Arafat died than the State of Israel re-arrested Mordechai Vanunu, the nuclear whistleblower half free after 18 years. Between 30 and 50 soldiers, some armed with machine guns, raided the Anglican Church that had granted him asylum, frightening pilgrims and making the Anglican Bishop very angry

Arafat has now begun his journey.

by iosaf

Fri Nov 12, 2004 09:39

His body which was flown from France after his death at Percy yesterday and a short preparation has in the last fifteen minutes been placed on earth brought from Jerusalem and the casket placed on a horse drawn carriage between two gold representations of the obelisks of Thebes.
It will begin it's journey now.

In four hours it will be transferred to Ramallah, where he will be enterred in a concrete casket on earth of Jerusalem awaiting the fulfillment of his testament and his burial at the city which ought unite the peoples of the books.

That will occur after the death of Ariel Sharon.

SWP's terrible position on Palestine/Israel

by KoKo

Fri Nov 12, 2004 11:13

I just read the Socialist Worker. In it there is an obiturary for Yasser Arafat. The SWP do criticise Arafat and give a reasonably balanced view of Arafat. He was a symbol of struggle with massive respect, but also he had his major flaws.

When I got to the end of the article I didn't think I was reading an article in a SOCIALIST newspaper! The SWP say that the Israeli working class are completely incapable of supporting the Palestinian fight for justice: "...Israelis, brought up surrounded by walls, believing that they are under siege, [are] unlikely to be a major force for change."

If the SWP were socialist they would draw a class conclusion not a nationalist conclusion. Surely Arab and Israeli workers should fight together against their common oppressor, the Israeli bourgeoisie. They advise the Palestinians to "to link their struggle with that of the wider Arab working masses, to appeal to them to join in a regionalised intifada". What about the Israeli working class?!!

In the entire article there is not one mention of Socialism. The SWP are proposing that a single capitalist state established without the support of the Israeli working class will be a solution to the conflict: "The only guarantee of a peaceful coexistence is the creation of one state..." There is even the claim that there has been 1000 years of peaceful coexistance between Jew, Arab and Christian. So the SWP now want to return to the feudal days in the middle east!

SWP are not a socialist party. SWP are not a workers party. They should be renamed the Nationalist Arab Party.

as the funereal rites continue

by -

Fri Nov 12, 2004 11:19

Ireland's Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern, is accompanied by a whole load of VIPs including :-
Algeria - President Abdelaziz Bouteflika
Bangladesh - President Iajuddin Ahmed
China - Vice Premier Hui Liangyu
Denmark - Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller
Egypt - President Hosni Mubarak
European Union - Foreign policy chief Javier Solana
France - Foreign Minister Michel Barnier
Germany - Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer
Greece - Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis
India - Foreign Minister Natwar Singh
Indonesia - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
Iran - Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi
Iraq - Vice-President Rowsch Nouri Shaways
Italy - Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Alfredo Mantica
Jordan - King Abdullah
Lebanon - President Emile Lahoud
Malaysia - Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
The Netherlands - Foreign Minister Bernard Bot
Norway - Foreign Minister Jan Petersen
Pakistan - Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz
Russia - State Duma Chairman Boris Gryzlov
Saudi Arabia - Crown Prince Abdullah
South Africa - President Thabo Mbeki
Spain - Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos
Sri Lanka - Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse
Sudan - President Omar el-Bashir
Sweden - Prime Minister Goran Persson
Tunisia - President Zine el-Abdine Ben Ali
Turkey - Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
United Kingdom - Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
United Nations - Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen
World Council of Churches - Pope Shenouda III, head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church-
Yemen - President Ali Abdullah Saleh
Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe

No Isreali representation and only a minor diplomat from the USA (Assistant Secretary of State Williams Burns) who for protocol reasons must walk very far back in the crowd coz he's like you and me, a nobody.
It will be interesting to make the comparison with Sharon's death and funeral rites when they come soon enough.

No Israeli representation

Fri Nov 12, 2004 12:11

"No Israeli representation" - are you taking the p*ss? What exactly were you expecting? Do you really think Sharon should attend and start a riot? If there was Israeli representation, you people would complain. It's good to see the Americans are treating his death with the importance and relevance it deserves.

gold smear

Fri Nov 12, 2004 21:45

can this racist diatribe not be removed?

Why?

by toneore

Fri Nov 12, 2004 22:05

toneore at eircom dot net

Why is it racist? Isn't your anti-semitic name racist?

A Tribute to Yasser Arafat

by Barry

Fri Nov 12, 2004 22:11

The following statement was released by the 32 County Sovereignty Movement in sympathy with the Palestinians at this heartbreaking time

"When a father is gone it takes a very strong family to carry on. So at this time we offer up our prayers to help strengthen the resolve of all the sons and daughters of Palestine."

32CSM extends its sympathy to the Palestinian people upon the death of Yasser Arafat.

The death this morning of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat comes as a palpable shock to his people and to revolutionaries across the world. For many years past he has been a continuous presence in the struggle forrecognition of Palestinian nationhood and his passing has no doubt left a vacuum in the hearts of many of his followers, as well as leaving a questionmark over an equivalent successor to the PLO leadership.

There are many radically different opinions on the strategy employed in what was later termed "the middle-east peace-process" and it would not be right to argue during this moment of mourning over such points. Suffice to say that Arafat was recognised even by his enemies as a person with a phenomenally enigmatic character who could inspire unswerving and unquestionable devotion, to the extent that his image and the Palestinian struggle became almost one and the same in the minds of millions of people.

The ill-health that he suffered in the months prior to his death was no doubt greatly influenced by the conditions in which he was forced to live by Israeli forces since the beginning of the 2nd Intifada. Nevertheles Arafat himself would have perhaps found it fitting that he could share the same hardships and indignities as his people in those final weeks.

The 32CSM extends its deepest condolences to the family of Yasser Arafat , and to the Palestinian people we re-dedicate our fullest support and solidarity.

Gaza - Hamas Mourns the death of Arafat. -

The Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, today issued an obituary mourning the death of Palestinian Authority chief Yasser Arafat, describing him as "the great leader".

Hamas statement said that Arafat had dedicated his life to serving the Palestinian cause. Arafat ceaselessly struggled for the sake of the Palestinian cause and defended his peoples national question at both regional and international platforms, the statement elaborated.

Hamas said that Arafat had passed through much trouble, siege and suffering as a result of his active roles.

Hamas affirmed that the loss of this great leader would only boost the Palestinian peoples steadfastness and insistence on resistance in face of the Zionist enemy till achievement of complete victory and liberation within the grace of Allah.

Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman in the Gaza strip affirmed that Arafat was a great symbol of the Palestinian struggle.

Statements carried on http;//32csm.netfirms.com/international.html

Duh

by TheTroll

Fri Nov 12, 2004 23:28

The Nazi occupations of Norway and Denmark were no where near as brutal and bloodsoaked as the ZIonist's crusade in Palestinian lands has been so far. yet those nations populations produced freedom fighters. Is it really a mystery that a relativly tiny fraction of the Palestinian's population would also choose to become freedom fighters against ZIonist crusaders? Or a mystery that Palestinians would fondly remember that tiny fraction's defense of the Palestinians against murderous thieving foriegn invadors?

Hitchens Obit

by _

Sat Nov 20, 2004 23:16

Arafat's Squalid End
How he wasted his last 30 years.
By Christopher Hitchens

http://slate.msn.com/id/2109860/

But has any national movement ever been so appallingly led? Edward Said asked many times, in public and private, where the Mandela of Palestine could be. In rather bold contrast to this decent imagination, Arafat managed to be both a killer and a compromiser (Mandela was neither), both a Swiss bank-account artist and a populist ranter (Mandela was neither), both an Islamic "martyrdom" blow-hard and a servile opportunist, and a man who managed to establish a dictatorship over his own people before they even had a state (here one simply refuses to mention Mandela in the same breath).

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Yasser Arafat (1929-2004) - Obituary

Comments (14 of 14)