Feisal Husseini will be buried tomorrow in Jerusalem with great circumstance. However whatever else he was, and many think he was a good and committed man, hewas a fairly simple man and he certainly was not a great man. He was a man bornto a notable family who played a role for both the Palestinian elite and for theIsraelis occupiers with whom various forms of cooperation took place at varioustimes -- a difficult role. And after his burial tomorrow, when it is moreappropriate maybe over the weekend, there is considerably more to say about Mr.Husseini and the role he played. We will also try to make available soon, nowthat he has died, an exclusive hour-long interview MER's publisher, MarkBruzonsky, had with Mr. Husseini at his home in East Jerusalem some ten yearsago during the first Intifada -- a very lively and insightful discussion bothabout the "situation" as well as about the man and the role he played.

But right now, with time so pressing, we will just raise a few considerationsothers apparently will not.

These are treacherous times, conspiratorial, times, and in recent months Mr.Husseini was far more outspoken in public than he had been previously sayingthings quite provocative to the Israelis. Plus of course Ariel Sharon is now incharge in Israel and the history of Israel's Mossad still remains very muchveiled. Thus an autopsy definitely should have been done in this case -- avery complete one under some kind of international expert supervision in fact. Arafat's regime absolutely insisted not, raising still further doubts andsuspicions.

Whatever symbolism will take place in Jerusalem tomorrow there has already beensome very wrong symbolism. No regime in history has done more to make possibleIsraeli war victories and occupation policies than the Hashemite regime on theEast Bank of the Jordan, formerly known as TransJordan. Today's King Abdullah'snamesake, his great grandfather, was assassinated for that role by Palestiniansin Jerusalem not far from the very spot where Feisal Hussein will tomorrow belaid to rest. There should not be any place for this Hashemite regime in theburial of a major Palestinian nationalist figure -- whether one truly great ornot. Sadly however, Mr. Husseini himself may well have approved of the waythings are being handled, only adding to the long saga of the ongoingPalestinian tragedy, only further underscoring how badly the Palestinian peoplehave suffered for so long not only from the Zionist movement and the HashemiteKingdom but from their own terrible divisions and mediocre leadership.

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/5/223.htm