WEST ASIA

AFTER ARAFAT

ATUL ANEJA
in Ramallah

Palestinians plunge into grief at Yasser Arafat's death. But they also take the first steps to usher in a smooth political transition.

THE death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was not unexpected after he slipped into a coma on November 3 at the Percy Military Hospital in Paris. Nevertheless the formal announcement of his demise on November 11 plunged much of West Asia into grief. The Palestinian territories, apart from being enveloped in sadness, were gripped by a sense of anxiety.

To most Palestinians, the future appeared hazy without the towering presence of Arafat, who not only symbolised Palestinian aspirations but had acquired an iconic status by his relentless pursuit of the dream of a Palestinian homeland. In a spontaneous outpouring of grief, inconsolable crowds gathered at Arafat's Muqataa headquarters compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he was buried in a stone-lined marble grave on the evening of November 12.

Soil from the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem was used for the burial, and hopes were expressed that Arafat would finally be laid to rest there one day, as he had wished. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon refused the Palestinian leader a burial in Jerusalem and Israeli Justice Minister Yosef (Tommy) Lapid remarked crudely that a Jerusalem burial was meant for "Jewish kings" and not "Arab terrorists".

The Israelis had besieged Arafat in his bombed-out compound for more than two and a half years, until, on October 29, a special plane outfitted as a flying hospital took him to France from Amman, the Jordanian capital. Soon after daybreak that day two Jordanian helicopters that flew into Muqataa in overcast conditions and intermittent rain took Arafat and his personal staff to the waiting aircraft.

Arafat's body was due to lie in state, but the surging crowd of mourners clamouring to touch his coffin forced a change of plan. Firing into the air, Palestinian security men struggled to remove Arafat's body from a light green helicopter that flew in from the Egyptian capital Cairo, where he was accorded a state funeral attended by several Arab heads of state and Foreign Ministers from across the globe. External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh, accompanied by Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed, led the Indian delegation.

The coffin containing Yasser Arafat's body, brought for burial in the compound of his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

It took nearly 25 minutes to lower the coffin from the helicopter even as Palestinian leaders pleaded with the crowds for restraint. Faced with the unexpected situation, security personnel placed the coffin on a vehicle and held on to it tightly even as the vehicle inched its way through the sea of people. Weeping mourners rushed to touch the coffin, chanting, "With our blood and soul we redeem you, Abu Ammar (as Arafat is fondly called)." In the melee the Palestinian flag draping the coffin was pulled off, while gunmen fired long bursts into the air, wounding two mourners lightly.

Busloads of Palestinians continued to stream into the area from various parts of the West Bank throughout the afternoon. With Israel not allowing ordinary Palestinians to travel to the West Bank from Gaza, Gaza City held its own symbolic funeral service, attended by thousands, including representatives of the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Palestinian youth in Gaza set hundreds of tyres ablaze and the smoke that hung in the air was so thick that only the tops of buildings and minarets were visible. Loudspeakers broadcast readings from the Koran, while offices and shops remained closed. Black flags surfaced in most parts of the city and the walls were plastered with Arafat's posters. Many Palestinians said they had lost their "father". Some described him as a "fighter" and hoped that his dream of leading them to independence would be realised. It was not until the evening of November 11 that organised mourning began. Thousands of Arafat's followers assembled in Gaza's central square and marched towards his offices, destroyed by the Israeli air force in the spring of 2002, where mourning ceremonies were held.

In the city of Hebron, crowds on the streets praised Arafat as the "leader of all free men and free women in the world" and pledged to "walk in Arafat's footsteps". Said one of the speakers at a rally: "We are believers and we know that every human being will die, but I assure our struggling people that we are all Arafats.... Every Palestinian man, woman and child will be a Yasser Arafat."

Outside the territories, the demise caused intense grief in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. All the 12 refugee camps in Lebanon, the country that Arafat had made his launch pad for the attacks on Israel until 1982, declared 40 days of mourning. Men and women and children and the elderly, many in tears, held spontaneous demonstrations. "Abu Ammar, you can rest now, we shall continue the struggle," chanted the large crowd of mourners marching through the streets of the Ain al-Hilwah refugee camp.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), around 400,000 Palestinian refugees are registered in Lebanon. In Jordan, the largest Palestinian refugee camp of Baqaa was covered in black. An estimated 1.7 million Palestinian refugees live in 10 camps across the kingdom and Baqaa alone houses 120,000 people who were displaced by the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Half of Jordan's population of around 5.3 million is of Palestinian origin.

ARAFAT'S death evoked calls for unity by all political sections, including the rival militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said, "We feel extreme sadness and pain on the death of our brother Abu Ammar." He was a great leader with a record of long decades of struggle and open confrontations with the enemy, Meshaal added. Islamic Jihad leader Mohammad Al-Hindi called for "unity and steadfastness". "We are all one people fighting for our freedom and to liberate our land," he said.

Meshaal accused Israel of poisoning Arafat to death. "I hold Israel responsible for the crime of killing Abu Ammar," Meshaal told Al Jazeera television. He referred to his own poisoning by Israeli agents in 1997, which he said he survived only because the late King Hassan of Jordan pressured Israel to provide the antidote. "French, Arab or Palestinian doctors may not be able to find evidence [that Arafat had been poisoned]," he alleged.

Palestinians also took the first steps to usher in a smooth political transition based on the Palestinian basic law. New leaders filled the positions Arafat held in the top three Palestinian bodies: the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), which is the governing body in the West Bank and Gaza; the broader Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which is responsible for the peace talks with Israel; and Al Fatah, which represents the mainstream Palestinian national movement.

On November 11, former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas became the new Chairman of the PLO, while Parliament Speaker Rawih Fattouh emerged as the new President of the P.A. Under the Palestinian basic law, Fattouh will hold office for 60 days, during which time elections should be held. Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei also emerged stronger with enhanced powers in the financial and security domains.

"We can be certain that the transition will be smooth, and the Palestinian people deserve to have free and fair elections," Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat was quoted as saying. At a press conference in Ramallah on November 13, Ahmed Qurei said elections would be held within the two-month period in accordance with the Palestinian Constitution.

ALASTAIR GRANT/AP

Farouk Kaddoumi, the Tunis-based chief of PLO's political department who became the new head of Al Fatah.

In a hall filled with council members, along with Mahmoud Abbas, Ahmed Qurei and foreign envoys to the P.A., Rawih Fattouh pledged allegiance to his new post in front of the president of the Palestinian National Council, Salim Zaanoun, and Palestinian Supreme Court president, Zuheir Surani. He tearfully declared that the P.A. would follow in Arafat's footsteps and abide by his political principles.

Apart from the PLO and the P.A., Al Fatah also has a new head, Farouk Kaddoumi, the Tunis-based chief of the PLO's political department. A man of strong views, Kaddoumi was among the few mainstream Palestinian leaders who rejected the Oslo accords - the foundation of a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal. In 1994, he declined to set foot on the Palestinian territories when Arafat decided to move his entourage there from Tunis. Kaddoumi is known to have developed extensive contacts abroad.

After being appointed head of Al Fatah he reminded Palestinians of the relevance of resistance to achieve political objectives. "Resistance is the path to arriving at a political settlement," he told Lebanon-based Al-Manar television. "We are not saying we are capable of defeating the Israeli army. But this policy was set out by the PLO when the martyr, our brother Abu Ammar, stood before the United Nations in 1974 and said, `I hold a rifle in one hand and an olive branch in the other. Don't knock the olive branch from my hand'... He meant: `I'm ready for there to be political talks, but if they go astray then we will continue carrying the rifle', and that's been clear since 1974." Kaddoumi is likely to play a significant role in the internal political debate in case the United States re-engages the new Palestinian leadership in a political dialogue.

The emerging leadership is aware that to consolidate its position it will have to find ways to accommodate the popular Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti in the new political dispensation. An opinion poll conducted in September by the Palestinian Centre for Survey and Research showed that Barghouti, who is now in an Israeli jail, was next to Arafat in terms of popularity.

Contrary to media reports, it is unlikely that individuals such as Mohammad Dahlan, Arafat's former security adviser, who have considerable influence in Gaza's preventive security establishment, will create difficulties for the new Palestinian establishment. Dahlan was in Paris during Arafat's admission to hospital. He played the role of an intermediary between Arafat's wife Suha Arafat and Palestinian leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qurei. In an emotional outburst, Suha Arafat, who was the only one allowed at her husband's bedside, had publicly accused Palestinian leaders of trying to grab power and conspiring to bury her husband alive.

While Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, which oppose the Oslo accords and stand committed to the destruction of Israel, called for unity among Palestinians, they pose a serious challenge to the authority of mainstream Palestinian institutions. These groups called for evolving a mechanism of "joint" leadership in which they could play a part. The Palestinian Prime Minister, at a meeting in Gaza with 13 political organisations, including the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, agreed to discuss the proposal but did not make any commitment. Hamas has also begun to press for elections and has indicated its intent to participate in municipal as well as parliamentary elections in the future. Analysts point out that elections are likely to be the key to long-term political stability as well as unity inside the Palestinian territories.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail