The Hindu : Engaging Arafat

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Saturday, Sep 20, 2003

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Engaging Arafat

By Chinmaya Gharekhan

It must be recognised that only Yasser Arafat can sell a less than fully satisfactory deal to his people. He should be made a part of the solution, rather than be considered a part of the problem.

THE ISRAELI Government's determination to annihilate Yasser Arafat — politically and/or physically — is guaranteed to prevent a return to President George Bush's road map and to ensure that there will be no solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at least during the lifetime of the present leaderships in Israel and Palestine. As one Israeli columnist has observed, without Mr. Arafat, there will be no Palestinian Authority, no Palestinian rule in West Bank and Gaza and the state of Israel will have to reoccupy all the territories and re-establish its administration. Even with the best of intentions on both sides, the problem is not amenable to a `just and lasting' solution, given the complexities and passions behind the various issues such as the future of Jerusalem and the return of refugees, not to mention the Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, sharing of waters, etc.

The sad, tragic part of the story is that Mr. Arafat, at least for the past 15 years or so, has been a moderate. He once was a firm believer in terrorist methods, much as Ariel Sharon and Menachim Begin were in the past on the Jewish side. He realised, certainly since 1988 when the Palestine Liberation Organisation officially endorsed the two-state solution, the utter impossibility of `pushing Israel into the sea' and reconciled to Israel as a fact of life, not to be wished away. Ever since, while his rhetoric at times has been unfortunate, his actions have been in conformity with his `conversion'.

Consider the facts. Mr. Arafat agreed to participate in the Madrid conference even though he had to swallow his pride and agree to the PLO's participation only as a part of the Jordanian delegation. Following Madrid, he adopted the same formula for the Palestinian representation at the Washington talks. At the negotiations in Washington, Mr. Arafat let his negotiating team take a tough position and first acquiesced in and later became enthusiastic about the secret talks with the Israelis in Oslo. When the Oslo accords became public, his delegation at the Washington talks, which included Hanan Ashrawi, was incensed; it felt betrayed because the members believed that they could have obtained better terms than were produced in Oslo. Many Palestinians accused Mr. Arafat of a `sell-out'. In recognition of the exemplary courage and the political, and even physical, risk taken by Mr. Arafat, he was conferred the Nobel Peace Prize along with Yitzak Rabin and Shimon Peres. (Rabin, not much later, was assassinated by a fanatic Jewish citizen of Israel.) Can a Nobel Laureate be a terrorist?

There is more. It was not enough to sign the Oslo accords; they had to be fleshed out and implemented. A year after Oslo, the parties concluded an Interim Agreement in Cairo, laying down a five-year implementation programme, somewhat but not quite like the current, nearly dead, road map. All the books written by Israelis and others on the Oslo peace process confirm that but for Mr. Arafat's moderating influence, there would have been no progress. Abu Ala, the new Palestinian Prime Minister, who did the actual negotiating at the time, almost always took a firm stand on some of the points and Mr. Peres always went over Mr. Ala's head directly to Mr. Arafat and got his way. When I was in Gaza as the United Nations Special Coordinator, I once asked Abu Mazen about Mr. Arafat. His reply surprised me: "Arafat has always been a moderate."

All these are facts, not figments of one's imagination. It is not a question of being pro or anti-Arafat or pro or anti-Israel. The people on both sides are for peace, except for hardcore extremists who are to be found in all societies. So long as the adversary has given up violent methods as a means of achieving his political agenda, he has to be dealt with as a negotiating partner; one does not have to like him.

Is Mr. Arafat really responsible for all the suicide bombings in Israel? The answer is clearly in the negative. Could he have prevented them? The answer is provided by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad which turned down Mr. Arafat's appeal to extend the `truce'. What about the Al Aqsa brigades which are affiliated to Mr. Arafat's Fatah faction? Mr. Arafat should be able to rein them in and he must do it. How did the Al Aqsa brigades emerge? They were formed in direct response to Mr. Sharon's defiant visit to the Temple Mount or the Sacred Monument in September 2000, accompanied by a posse of 1000 Israeli police. Mr. Arafat had begged the then Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, to prevent Mr. Sharon's visit and also sought American intervention. But Mr. Sharon, who was seeking his party's leadership, defied all pleas. The rest, as they say, is history. This is not to condone, for one second, the killings of innocent men, women and children on the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, nor of Palestinians in Gaza, Jenin, Hebron and Qalqiya.

Even Abu Mazen made a mistake in dealing with Mr. Arafat. When appointed Prime Minister in April 2003, he committed a serious error when he asked for Mr. Arafat's support `by removing himself from the position of Chairman [of the PLO].' There was no chance that Mr. Arafat would agree to it. No leader helps to eliminate himself politically; and in West Asia, political elimination might be the first, and the last, step to physical elimination. If Mr. Arafat has more than his fair share of ego, and he probably has, he has good reasons for it. But for him, the Palestinian cause might still have languished as a pawn in the intra-Arab politics. But he too has a dream, just as Ben Gurion and other Zionist leaders of the early 20th century had. He would like to see an independent Palestinian state in his lifetime with him at its head, of course. But the problem both for him and for Israel is that he is not prepared to settle for just any Palestinian state, certainly not on only 50 per cent of the West Bank which is the maximum that Mr. Sharon is apparently willing to concede.

Israel is only partially right to insist that terrorism must end before meaningful negotiations can start. First, the road map, which the Israelis have accepted, calls for several simultaneous, and not sequential, steps from them. Secondly, they have destroyed all the security infrastructure without which even the Americans agree the P.A. cannot do much. In any case, Israel is wrong to hold Mr. Arafat responsible for the suicide bombings. It should be recalled that Mr. Mazen did manage to get a `hudna' from Hamas and Jihad and the truce lasted full 50 days and was only shattered by an Israeli targeted killing of a Hamas leader. It is a great shame that Israel, as well as the U.S. did not give Mr. Mazen the support that he needed and deserved. Even though the release of the prisoners was not part of the road map, setting free a significant number of prisoners would have greatly strengthened his hands and standing with his people. The Americans and Israelis could not have found and will not find a more pragmatic Palestinian leader to deal with than Mr. Mazen. Their media have almost succeeded in convincing the world that Mr. Mazen quit entirely because of his differences with Mr. Arafat, but they conveniently ignore his complaints against them. The U.S. and Israel ought to be aware that no Palestinian leader can afford to ignore or humiliate Mr. Arafat, who, thanks to Mr. Sharon, is once again enjoying immense popularity. As Mr. Mazen said in his resignation speech: `the siege of our president is a torture of our honour'.

The Palestinian people are tired of violence and desperately seek peace. The same is true of the Israeli people. It would be a tremendous help if the Israeli Government could present a vision of two states, with the borders of the Palestinian state somewhat along the lines of the negotiations at Taba in January of 2001. There might still be time. But it must be recognised that it is only Mr. Arafat who can sell a less than fully satisfactory deal to his people. He should be made a part of the solution, rather than be considered a part of the problem.

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