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The Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence is larger than the late
President Yasir Arafat. The decades-long symbolism that Arafat embodied should
not be underestimated. It is this symbolism that Palestinians are mourning.
The substance of Arafat?s symbolism has to do with how it has represented
Palestinian nationalism and the five decade struggle for justice for a people
that were dispossessed in 1948, militarily occupied in 1967, attacked while in
exile in 1970 in Jordan and 1982 in Lebanon, and most recently, battered in
their own homes in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. A wide
spectrum of opinions about Arafat, the man and the leader, will surely outlive
the international flurry of media interest in his death. However, the world
must be aware that the Palestinian struggle is beyond any single individual.
During the last decade, Yasir Arafat brought to the table something that Israel
and the United States could only previously dream about: the single legitimate
source for Palestinian political decisions. Through his iron-fisted and highly
centralized control of Palestinian decision making bodies, finances and
fighters, Arafat was able to coax his people into dealing with a new reality,
the Oslo Peace Process, that he hoped would open the door for good faith from
Israel and the United States. Arafat hoped that this process would ultimately
end in a political solution resulting in two independent states living side by
side, Palestine and Israel. History has proven that Israel and the United
States had other plans -- the creation of a process that would, in and of
itself, become the means as well as the goal. It was a process that would
serve as the final nail in the coffin of the legitimate Palestinian demands
that international and humanitarian law be applied to their case.!
Israel and the United States made a major blunder. They ignored the fact that
the ?peace? they had made was a peace between leaders and not between peoples.
Thus, as the US and Israel unsuccessfully sought to twist Arafat?s arm in the
Camp David II talks in Year 2000, they began a concerted campaign discrediting
Arafat and pinning the blame of the breakdown of talks on a single person.
Arafat was truly the shrewder politician. He knew that for a peace among
leaders to be transformed into a peace among peoples, the real issues of the
conflict had to be justly addressed. Refugees, settlements, Jerusalem, and
statehood were not negotiating cards, but the essence of the entire effort.
It is amazing how someone so ?irrelevant,? such as Arafat was deemed by Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, can attract so much attention even in his death.
The international media that has flooded the city of Ramallah, Arafat?s last
place of refuge, is poised to analyze every minute aspect of his death and
burial. What they will most likely miss is the most important part of his
legend, which lies in the fact that the struggle for Palestinian freedom and
independence, which Arafat symbolized, will not be buried with him.
Once the tears are wiped away the situation can take many shapes, the most
likely being that the Palestinian leadership will be able to establish
governing legitimacy. However earning leadership legitimacy will take some
time. Among the complications are that there are several Palestinian political
bodies that must be addressed, since Arafat led all of them single-handedly.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) will be the most difficult to
address since it is a body that represents all Palestinians worldwide and is
the formal signatory to the Oslo Peace Accords, from which the Palestinian
Authority was established. The PLO has not held elections for decades and the
basic issue of who is an eligible member of this body, as well as where their
meetings should be held, will be internally questioned in the days to come.
Additionally, unlike the Palestinian Authority, which is a rather new body and
has been under tremendous international scrutiny, the PLO?s inner workings and
finances are a black box to many Palestinians, leaders as well as masses.
The Palestinian Authority (PA), being a product of the Oslo Peace Process, is
solely focused on governing the Palestinians living under occupation. It is
expected that this body, especially given a recently enacted Basic Law, will
make a stable succession and continue to perform its duties. It is also
expected that the international community will be extremely interested in
continuing to politically and financially support the PA in order to avoid a
social upheaval in the Occupied Territories that would certainly turn toward
the Israeli occupiers as well. The Palestinian Authority is where it will be
most likely that the first free and democratic elections would take place in
the post-Arafat era. However, unlike Arafat, who had a multitude of vantage
points, the expected outcome of PA elections would result in a vision produced
by a people that, for many, know no other life except that of living under
Israeli military occupation and the death and destruction that the Osl!
o process has brought them. Politically, this will create a more hard-line
position toward Israel, albeit mixed with sober practicality.
The third body that the Palestinian leadership will need to address post-Arafat
is Arafat?s own political party, FATAH. This will be a long drawn-out saga
since no one party member is privy to the decision-making process, finances and
grassroots support. The one FATAH member that has the ability to rally the
party is Palestinian Legislative Council member and FATAH Secretary Marwan
Barghouti, who Israel has imprisoned along with 7,000 other Palestinians.
In light of the complex and sensitive situation that Arafat?s death has
created, it would be na�ve for the world, or the new Palestinian leadership for
that matter, to think that a quick political settlement could be achieved
without addressing the core issues, once and for all. To continue to
force-feed Palestinians with half-cooked initiatives, such as the Unilateral
Disengagement Plan, the Roadmap, the Tenant Plan, the Mitchell Plan, the Oslo
Accords and such would be yet another wasted opportunity for the world
community to resolve this conflict. And with every wasted effort more innocent
people will die on both sides of the illegal Separation Wall that Israel is
building on Palestinian lands and which has turned Palestinian cities into
open-air concentration camps.
Time will be needed as Palestinians prepare for long overdue elections, the
restructuring of their organizations, and the bringing to trial of those who
have stolen or misused Palestinian public funds in the past. An Israel led by
Ariel Sharon will surely do all in her power to make sure that the Palestinians
fail in picking up the pieces after Arafat?s demise. Thus, it is the
responsibility of the international community to finally step in and play its
neglected role of protecting the militarily occupied Palestinians and demanding
that Israel immediately abide by all Security Council and General Assembly
resolutions, which call for the real end of military occupation and not a
redeployment ploy such as that being offered for Gaza in Israel?s Disengagement
Plan.
The United Nations should immediately convene to deploy multinational troops to
provide protection to the Palestinian people, as stipulated for by the Fourth
Geneva Convention of 1949. Such an international presence would serve many
purposes. On the one hand, it would protect the Palestinians from the
continuing onslaught by the Israeli military and give them time to recover from
five decades of autocratic rule. On the other hand, a multinational
peace-keeping force would save Israel from itself, since its continuous pushing
of an occupied people to total despair can only breed more violence.
Despite the confusion of the hour, one fact remains clear. The Palestinian
people, collectively, whether in the Occupied Territories, scattered in squalid
refugee camps around the Middle East, or living in exile, will never wake up
one day and accept the historic injustice that has been done to them. As long
as Palestinians breathe they will rightfully demand that law and justice
prevail in ending the nightmare that has haunted them for more than 50 years.
It is in this spirit that one may recall the words of former United States
President John F. Kennedy when he said, 'Those who make peaceful change
impossible make violent change inevitable.'
* Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American businessman living in the Israeli
Occupied Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank and can be reached at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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