for 20 years, and then spent time with him around negotiating tables at Camp David and elsewhere. I gradually found him to be a sophisticated manipulator, more an actor than a leader, holding a mirror and a weather vane to find his way, rather than a compass.
Arafat is a man of the past. Yes, the Palestinian crowds still cheer for him, and the struggle that preceded the formation of Abu Mazen’s government shows that he still retains power. He remains a living symbol of the Palestinian national movement. But since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq, a new chapter in Middle East history has been opened, and it has no natural place for him. Hence, within a year or two, I believe, Chairman Arafat will begin his march into history. He has failed to rise to the challenge of historic leadership, and has thus become a source of tragedy for his own people.
Last week’s release of the Roadmap is a demanding, and potentially damaging, challenge to Arafat. It was launched only after Arafat was coerced into accepting the executive triumvirate of Abu Mazen (whose formal name is Mahmoud Abbas), Muhammad Dahlan and Salam Fayad. Abu Mazen, the Palestinian prime minister, will deprive Arafat of some executive power. Dahlan, the minister of internal security, is supposed to crack down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad as well as on Arafat’s own Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. And Fayad, the Finance minister, will try to find the Palestinian money that’s trickled into the private accounts of Palestinian leaders, and to establish new, transparent and accountable institutions.
They will not have an easy time, mostly because it’s not in Arafat’s interest for them to succeed. If they implement reforms and move toward reconciliation with Israel, honest Palestinians might wonder who was responsible for the thousands of Palestinian lives that have been lost in a vain attempt to dictate a political solution to Israel through homicidal bombings. As long as Arafat holds power, there will be no Israeli-Palestinian peace. Orwellian double-speak and treachery will prevail.
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is a painful divorce that should be executed for the benefit of both sides. Israel should give the Roadmap a fair chance to succeed. Illegal settlement outposts should be dismantled. The rule of law should be followed by all. Ways should be found to ease daily life for Palestinians. If and when the Palestinians launch a coherent and determined crackdown on all terror groups, then Israel will have to use common sense and not let a single attack stop the peace process. But we’re not yet there. And Israel cannot be expected to step forward before statements turn into action on the Palestinian side. The opportunity is here, but the challenge is immense.
There have been opportunities before–as the late Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban used to say, “The Palestinian leadership has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I once told Arafat, is one of the most complicated conflicts on earth, and it won’t be solved unless human beings are ready to make decisions and put an end to it. We happen to be the human beings in charge, I added, and the price of our failure will be the loss of thousands of innocent lives on both sides before our successors return to the negotiating table to solve exactly the same issues. Yet in July 2001, Arafat rejected the Camp David proposal as a basis for negotiation and deliberately turned to terror.
Last week President Bush, addressing the American people from an aircraft carrier, said that whoever commits terrorist acts, or supports or harbors those who do, is the enemy of the United States. No one better fits those descriptions than Arafat. He has engendered hatred in a generation of Palestinians, poisoned the souls of millions of young Arabs and Muslims around the world. But beyond that, he represents a failure of character and leadership. If the Palestinians had a leader like Egypt’s Anwar Sadat or Jordan’s King Hussein, we would have had peace by now.
