Arafat's legacy

He was in exile when his people were forced into exile, he was besieged when his people were under seize, and he was a revolutionary when his people were forced to fight against the injustices inflicted upon them. In reality, Yasser Arafat can only be accused of constancy, fealty to his people who sought nothing but a place for his people who were thrown out from their hearth and home to assuage the guilt complex of those who had committed crimes against humanity.

When Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism and the writer of the book The Jewish State, approached the British for help for the creation of a home for the Jewish people in Palestine, the British offered to investigate the possibility of Jewish colonisation in East Africa, the so-called Uganda Scheme.

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The Balfour Declaration favouring "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" was predicated on the assurance that "nothing will be done which shall prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

In 1923, then Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill gave assurances that the Balfour Declaration must not mean "imposition of a Jewish nation upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole but the further development of the existing Jewish community."

But these commitments proved to be hollow, not only because of Machiavellian machinations of the colonial powers, but also because of the conviction of the Zionists of the superiority of their claim on Palestine.

Theodor Herzl was convinced that Palestine was "a land without people for a people without land (Jews)." Even two years after the 1967 war Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir maintained that the Palestinian people did not exist, perhaps emboldened by the UNSC resolution of November 1967 recommending "a just settlement of the refugee problem" without specifying the national identity of the refugees.

The refusal to accept the force of Palestinian nationalism was contrary to the resolve of the 22nd Zionist Congress (1946) which proposed the division of Palestine into two states: one Jewish and the other Arab, a proposal adopted by UNGA (in November 1947) regardless of the flagrant injustice inherent in the plan which would give more than half of the territory to the Jews who made up less than a third of the population and owned only six per cent of the land.

The Arab defeat at the hands of the Israelis in 1948, creation of the State of Israel, exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their home, annexation of the West Bank by Jordan, and attachment of the Gaza strip to Egypt marked the eclipse of the Palestinian national movement for decades. But inspired by the Algerian FNL's liberation struggle against France and Gamal Abdul Nasser's Pan-Arabism, the Palestinian nationalists of different shades were united in their absolute faith in their return to Palestinian homeland.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian diaspora in different Arab countries could not be absorbed by the host countries, mostly for justifiable reasons, leaving the Palestinians as refugees abroad and reinforcing their belief that Pan-Arabism could be achieved only through the liberation of Palestine and not the other way around.

In late 1950s Yasser Arafat founded Al-Fatah, the largest group in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which advocated independence from the influence of Arab states, and long duration guerrilla warfare like the Algerian FNL and the Viet Cong with the active support of Arab and liberation movements in Third World countries. Al-Fatah also advocated reunification of their country into a democratic state in which people of all faiths would live on equal footing. Arafat's acceptance of violence as a tool in his fight for liberation was not unique. Many freedom movements under colonial rule had to resort to violence in response to greater violence inflicted upon them. But these movements abandoned violence as soon as independence was achieved.

Contrary to Zionist demonisation of Yasser Arafat as a terrorist, even his detractors must concede Arafat's contribution to the ideological change of Palestinian nationalism from advocating for a Palestinian state in place of Israel to a Palestinian state alongside Israel. According to Professor Glenn Robinson about seventy percent of the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza want a two state solution and reconciliation with Israel after the creation of a Palestinian state. This is also the official policy of the PLO.

Many western leaders have criticised Yasser Arafat for failing to reach a peace agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and brokered by President Clinton at Camp David in 2000. Clinton in his book My Life has given detailed account of the negotiations. He termed Arafat's refusal to clinch the deal "a colossal mistake" and thought that Yasser Arafat "simply couldn't make the final jump from revolutionary to statesman ... Arafat's rejection of my proposal after Barak accepted was an error of historic proportion."

President Clinton describing Ariel Sharon as "the most aggressive, intransigent leader available" had perhaps given the impression that with Clinton and Barak gone peace in the Middle East may take a while to come. Some western scholars, however, look at the Camp David negotiations from a different perspective.

To accurately understand what happened at Camp David and later, they argue, one must keep in mind that Arafat and the Palestinians approached the negotiations with 1948 as the base date. Most Israelis, in contrast, see the conflict as a territorial dispute over land won in the 1967 war. They view actions prior to 1967 such as the exodus of Palestinian refugees as non-negotiable and raising such issues as constituting a challenge to the legitimacy of the existence of the state of Israel. Granting the refugees the right of return would not only threaten the Jewish character of Israel, but may give birth to two majority-Arab states in the disputed land.

On the other hand, the Palestinians consider the refugees' right of return as a core issue. But a survey undertaken last year of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank, and Gaza found that once their right of return was recognised, the vast majority would prefer to live not in Israel, but in the newly created state of Palestine. Arafat's refusal to sign on at Camp David had the support of the Palestinians in occupied land. Therefore, rightly or wrongly, only the future can tell whether Yasser Arafat truly represented the will of his people.

The post-Arafat transition of power has so far been smooth. Now that Arafat, seen by the US as an impediment to peace in the Middle East, is dead the second Bush administration may take a more pro-active role in implementing the Quartet Road Map (US, UN, EU, and Russia), an impression given to the world at the Bush-Blair press conference in Washington in mid-November. President Bush, in particular, was very insistent that the up coming Palestinian elections be free and truly democratic because, he said:

"We will hold their feet to the fire to make sure that democracy prevails." Tony Blair was equally determined to "revitalise and reinvigorate the search for a genuine, lasting, and just peace in the Middle East."

Despite concerns over competing "old guard" and "new guard" national factions, increasing public support for Islamists, decreasing support for Fatah, the shift in the Bush administration's policy closer to the Israeli right wing government, the emergence of separate entity in Gaza following Israeli disengagement possibly threatening unity of Palestinian state and society -- there is no doubt that the institutions left behind by Yasser Arafat would be able to deliver a moderate, secular, and democratic Palestine, able and willing to live in peace with a Jewish Israel. In this endeavour the Quartet have a very significant role to play and thus deliver peace and development to a people who for decades have seen neither.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador.