Yasir Arafat struggled relentlessly for
an independent Palestinian state.
Yasir Arafat stifled every opportunity
to create an independent Palestinian state.
These are not contradictions.
Look at his legacy. On a planet of six
billion people, he made the seemingly insignificant plight of six
million Palestinians a daily headline. His was the only Palestinian
voice heard outside the villages of the Holy Land for the last half of
the twentieth century. For a community whose only previous international
spokesman was the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem, Arafat was a
godsend.
Arafat designated himself the living
embodiment of the Palestinian people. The struggle for a Palestinian
state was his life’s sole purpose. Cultivating his image with
deliberate care by appearing in military dress, he sported firearms and
a trademark battlefield growth of beard. He wore the Kaffiyah, headdress
of the Bedouin soldiers. And he defended his self-appointed title of
Palestinian savior against all challengers.
Yet he systemically destroyed every
opportunity to create a Palestinian state. The most notable example: In
January of 2001, then Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak privately
offered Palestinian negotiators nearly everything they demanded for a
Palestinian state. Whether Barak could have convinced the Israelis to
support this proposal is questionable, but this challenge never arose.
Arafat claimed the rights of Palestinians to return to homes within
Israel were not addressed. He rejected the proposal as unacceptable and
turned his back. End of negotiations.
Why did Arafat sabotage the creation of
the Palestinian state he claimed was his sole goal? The answer appears
rather sad: A Palestinian state recognized by Israel, Arab nations, and
the international community would require a relatively uncorrupt
government, a security force that protected rather than endangered
citizens, working economic relations with Israel, collegial diplomatic
contacts with other Arab nations, and establishment of schools,
hospitals, roads, electricity, water supply, and other infrastructure
essential to any nation. Arafat could never answer these needs. Arafat
knew that the first free post-sovereignty election in Palestine would
reveal credible and popular competitors. A democratic Palestinian
electorate would retire him in a heartbeat. The establishment of a
sovereign Palestinian state would have, ironically, ended his career.
Arafat was no George Washington: First
in war, but not first in peace. Arafat was not a Cincinnatus: At the end
of the battle he could never forsake his wartime leadership and allow
more skilled peacetime diplomats to continue his work. Arafat was a
warrior who never wanted the war to end.
Thus it is no surprise that Arafat
dedicated his life to the struggle for, but not the achievement of,
Palestinian independence. Instead he made impossible both peace and
justice for Palestinians. Now the next generation of Palestinian
leaders, free of Arafat’s inability to lead a peacetime government,
must walk the final mile and create the state.
Arafat’s life made the Palestinian
state inevitable. His death makes it possible.