Paradoxical Legacy

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Yasser Arafat leaves behind him a long list of paradoxes. He was a master terrorist, stained, among other atrocities, with the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, who went on to become a Nobel Peace Prize winner and then reverted to the cult of terror and martyrdom. He was a self-styled “general” who lost again and again because he underestimated the opposition – challenging the Jordanian monarchy in 1970; being drawn into the Lebanese civil war in 1975; losing his hold in that country in 1982 (driven out of Beirut by Israel) and in 1983 (driven out of Tripoli by Syria); and more recently, misreading the resilience shown by Israeli society when faced by the Palestinian terror campaign (“a million shahids marching to Jerusalem”) launched in 2000.


He was an effective and even charming interlocutor, fixing his intense gaze upon all who met him – but he ended up being loathed by each and every Arab leader, let alone by Israelis, Americans, and a growing number of Europeans. He lived a frugal life, but presided over an orgy of corruption and governmental abuse, leaving behind some billion dollars in assets, a sufficient chunk of which has now been assigned to his wife so as to mollify her. Ultimately, he was a presumed master of diplomacy and politics who nevertheless ended up destroying the one political force in the world that really cared about a Palestinian partner – the Israeli left, which has lost more than half its electoral strength since Oslo. In the historical duel he joined with Prime Minister Sharon, it was Arafat who lost, above all because he came to be seen by Washington as a deceiver.


To understand this complex legacy, it is necessary to see Arafat as he was – simultaneously a world statesman, a regional terrorist, and a Muslim Brother:


For some 12 years, beginning in 1988, he was perceived largely as a negotiator and a possible peace partner – not least because he came to realize that with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the military defeat of Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, he had little choice but to come into the American orbit, by way of an agreement with Israel. Still, he never prepared his people for the possibility that further compromises might be necessary, beyond recognizing the legitimacy of Israel, and it was this failure that ultimately ruined the prospects for peace at the moment of decision at Camp David, in the summer of 2000.


Another element of his legacy was the practice of “revolutionary violence” – terrorism – which propelled him to prominence on the regional and global stage in 1965, when the first Fatah operation was launched. He often referred to himself as being in the line of Fidel Castro and Vo Nguyen Giap, and despite his own ideological preferences as a “bourgeois nationalist,” he made his organization a willing and important tool of subversion well beyond the direct confines of the Arab-Israeli struggle. The imprint of these practices is still with us; his own Fatah movement, with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as its violent arm, never fully made the transition from violence to governance.


Finally, in the last four years it became apparent that buried under those later layers was his early background as an Islamist radical, a Muslim Brother, who had to flee Egypt in 1956 because of his affiliations. It was this aspect of his personality that drove the decision to reject the Camp David offer, unless he was given absolute sovereignty over the Temple Mount – unless he was allowed to come to Jerusalem as a conqueror, an heir to Omar and Saladin. It was his dismissive attitude toward the Jewish claim in Jerusalem that undermined the diplomatic effort and revealed – as did the incessant incitement in the Palestinian press, in schoolbooks, and in official texts – that the recognition he extended to Israel as a state never included a genuine acceptance of the legitimacy of the Jewish national movement.


What happens now? The Palestinian people – if they do not descend into chaos and internecine strife – will be led by a group of experienced men who draw their authority from the institutional structure, not from revolutionary charisma. They all know, and some have openly said, that Arafat’s choices in the last four years have been disastrous. They will be measured by their actions to curb the violence and open the prospect of a coordinated Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, rather than the present plans for unilateral action. They cannot undo, at this stage, Arafat’s legacy of uncompromising positions on the so-called “permanent status” issues: Jerusalem, the 1967 borders, the “right of return.” Nor should they be pressed to do so prematurely. What they could do is to move away from the present chaos toward a stable interim agreement, in the context of the Road Map, which would at least offer a safer and better life to both sides.


The chaotic and violent nature of Palestinian governance in the last few years was very much a reflection of Arafat’s own paradoxes and problematic personal traits. It may well be interred with him, and few Palestinians will mourn this aspect of their loss. And then, perhaps, the handshake will remain – the one moment in which Arafat’s actions did open up new ways to move toward co-existence. It is, perhaps, an omen that Arafat passed away on November 11, which much of the world has come to mark as Armistice Day.



Mr. Lerman is the director of the American Jewish Committee’s Israel/Middle East Office in Jerusalem and a former intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Forces.


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