Commentary: Arafat Hands Over the Intifada

October 17, 2000

Yasir Arafat has agreed to stop the popular intifada against Israeli occupation. News reports say that the Sharm al Sheikh summit produced an "agreement" to end the violence between the Israeli and Palestinian "peoples" as if it is merely inter-ethnic strife and not the violence which is the inevitable result of brutal and relentless military occupation of one people by the most powerful army in the region. Arafat has also given up on the demand for an international enquiry into the violence, and agreed to a US-led enquiry, whose outcome is predetermined. But in truth, what would even an international enquiry have told us? Is there still room to pretend that occupation is not the disease and violence merely the natural symptom of occupation? Occupation is rape on a national scale. It is a crime of power and violence. And those who find this comparison harsh or offensive should go to Palestine and see what occupation has done to the land and the people. To women, to men, to children. To the environment, to water, to the ancient terraces, to olive groves and fields.

The most positive aspect of the recent crisis is that it opened the possibility that the international community and the United Nations would insist on their proper role in Middle East peace-making. This has always been Israel's greatest fear, because if Israel were required to abide by international law, it would have to give up its conquests. The US, making the running for Israel, has managed to snatch back the role of "honest broker," and put it firmly back in the laps of former Israeli lobbyists like Martin Indyk and Dennis Ross, and worse still Al Gore and in the distance Hilary Clinton and Rick Lazio.

I never thought that it would be easy for Arafat to change his ways, but I thought perhaps this time he would see and understand his people's frustration at the disasters he has brought on them through the ill-thought out, hasty, selfish and fatally-flawed Oslo deal. But what has been known for years has now been starkly exposed once again. Ever since Arafat went behind the back of his own peace negotiators and made the secret Oslo deal in 1993, his interests have been different, and even opposed to those of ordinary Palestinians.

Arafat's key constituency is not the Palestinians who live in the occupied territories. It is not the refugees or exiles spread around the world. It is Bill Clinton, the Israelis and the CIA. If Arafat admits that Oslo has been worse than a prison for his people, then he and his cronies will have to give up their privileges and lose all the comforts they fought for through seven long years of wrangling with their Israeli "peace partners." Arafat understood the Israeli rocket attacks against Ramallah and Gaza not as an attack and an outrage against the Palestinian people, but as a reminder from his Israeli patrons that he remains in Palestine at their pleasure and can be removed just as easily if he displeases them.

After Camp David there were some who thought that Arafat was capable of defending Palestinian interests, because he refused the "generous" hoax of an agreement pushed on him by Clinton.

But now Arafat has shown that when push comes to shove, and he has to choose between himself and his people, Arafat always gets the vote. When the first Intifada broke out in 1987, Arafat, who had nothing to do with it, was quick to claim credit for it, even though it was entirely the creation of the people.

Now he is accused of starting the second Intifada by his "friends" Clinton and Barak, but he denies it. In both cases, however, he has taken the sacrifices that people made and handed them back to the occupier in exchange for allowing him to survive another day. There is of course no talk of finally stopping the settlements, ending closures, and insisting on simple dignity for the Palestinian people.

There is no question that Arafat's "leadership" is bankrupt and that Arafat is a parasite on the back of his people. The question now is whether the people will continue to put their fate into the hands of such a regime, or will, like the people of Serbia and other nations before them, choose their own path out of the prison and into the future.

Ali Abunimah
ali@abunimah.org
http://www.abunimah.org