Summary
Leader of Fateh and the central figure of the Palestine Liberation Organization, whom Said calls the first Palestinian leader both to maintain a really intelligent grasp of all the major factors affecting the Palestinians everywhere and to hold an equally astonishing sway over the detail of Palestinian life.
Details
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Arafat, also known as the old man, is the always visible symbol of authority, the za’im, whose mere continuous presence guarantees the existence of the Palestinian cause (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.181 / printed p.160).
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Arafat has been something of a genius at containing the considerable freight of Iraqi, Egyptian, Syrian, Saudi or other baggage nearly every Palestinian carries, even using it to advantage, like Nasser (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.184 / printed p.163).
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The generally successful shepherding and husbanding of Palestinian resources by the main leaders, chief among them Arafat, is one of two factors Said says have not received as much discussion as they deserve; Arafat and Fateh assumed the central as well as broadly based quasi-governmental responsibility the Mandate-era oligarchical leadership could not, without ever appearing despotic or capricious (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.186-187 / printed p.165-166).
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At the Palestinian National Council in Cairo in spring 1977, the PLO executive committee, Arafat and the rest were subjected to minute, critical scrutiny in open debate (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.199 / printed p.178).
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When Arafat appeared before the American press, he was always asked about driving Jews into the sea, about recognizing Israel, about the PLO covenant, without a hint that he and the Palestinians he represented were being attacked daily by a state dedicated to Palestinian annihilation (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.216 / printed p.195).
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Sadat was known privately to have said that Arafat could not deliver on anything, as he detached himself from the PLO after November 1977 (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.223 / printed p.202).
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In Chapter Four III, Arafat came to the United Nations in November 1974 after any idea of a purely military solution had been given up, and was asking the majority of his constituency to think not in terms of the homes and rights lost irrevocably to Israel but in terms of new political gains — statehood, nationality, government — against opponents who argued he had capitulated and a Rejection Front calling for unending revolutionary struggle (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.245 / printed p.224).
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Arafat’s main speech to the Palestinian National Council in Cairo in March 1977 carefully stated Palestinian reciprocity for Carter’s Palestinian declarations at Clinton, Mass. (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.247 / printed p.226).
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And still Arafat persisted with gestures: he affirmed willingness to accept a state and recognize Israel de facto, told Anthony Lewis in May 1978 that he could accept a state and thereafter live peacefully next to Israel, and told Congressman Paul Findley the same thing in January 1979, while a murder campaign was conducted against his personal aides in the summer of 1978 and again in early 1979 (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.248 / printed p.227).
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Said names Arafat first among the individuals in whom, in the end, the Palestinian mission comes down — a leader like Yasir Arafat, or a poet like Samih al Qassem [as printed] (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.255 / printed p.234).
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In Pappe, Chapter 11: the Oslo architects seemed to have found a partner in Arafat for a peace that buried 1948; for nearly four decades Arafat had embodied a movement seeking legal and moral recognition of the ethnic cleansing of 1948, and signing the 2000 Camp David proposals — about fifteen per cent of original Palestine in cantons, no Jerusalem capital, no refugee solution — would have betrayed it, so even the frail Arafat, happy with salata (perks) at the expense of sulta (actual power), refused to sign and was depicted as a warmonger (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.278-280).
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In Makdisi, part 2: Arafat and the PA elite benefited from the Oslo arrangement through monopolies, corruption and cronyism; an IMF audit in 2003 found Arafat had diverted $900 million in public funds to an account under his personal control (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.133). Makdisi argues Arafat filled, until he could no longer restrain his people’s outrage, Oslo’s required role of a partner willing to accept provisional arrangements becoming permanent; Mahmoud Abbas took over in the same capacity after Arafat’s death in 2005 (PDF p.134).
Related pages
The Question of Palestine, Fateh, Palestine Liberation Organization, Palestinian National Council