Mid-East Realitieswww.middleeast.org

THE REAL ARAFAT

July 3, 2001

Sharon says "Arafat is Israel's Bin Laden" MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 7/2: Of course Sharon's comment yesterday is ridiculous. Problem is the strategy behind it is not. "You must comply, resistance is futile" is indeed the loud message from Sharon to Arafat; and Sharon does intend to prove his words in the weeks and months ahead, make no mistake about that. When it comes to the public relations war in the crucial country the United States Arafat is losing badly and it may well finally lead to his undoing after so long.

The real Arafat is a very complex man, one who has had tremendous success twisting his ways through the corrupt and usually co-opted halls of power and money in the Arab world; not to mention dominating his own people for some 30+ years now. But the Catch 22 of this "success" is that it is precisely Arafat's long-time enemies who have propped him up and kept him in power for the past decade after he brought the PLO to ruin and collapse. And they have done so precisely because they realized that this man Arafat had been and still could be so useful to them. Not only so useful behind-the-scenes, but also so much a disastrous clown when it comes to Western public opinion, not to mention so divisive and repressive for his own people.

There will now be no real Palestinian State in the near future, however much Arafat has both declared it and promised it ad infinitum. Just last year at this time Arafat's absolute promise was that there would "definitely, for sure" be a Palestinian State by the end of last year. But indeed, the actual result of Arafat's "rule" since "returning" has been the crazy-quilt sui generis apartheid-like situation the Palestinian people now face -- a situation far more difficult and far more devastating than what they faced just a decade ago before Arafat and his team of self-serving VIPs took over everything with money and guns and "intelligence" provided by Israel and the U.S.

Sometimes it seems as if Yasser Arafat has various impairments constantly requiring the services of such luminaries as Saeb Erakat or Nabil Sha'ath just to interpret his speech, and oftentimes his thoughts. This somewhat tongue-in-cheek article about Arafat's latest rantings with the foreign press does help expose much of the real Arafat, and it's not a pretty picture.

ARAFAT MEETS WITH FOREIGN PRESS

By DEBORAH SONTAG

RAMALLAH, West Bank, NEW YORK TIMES - June 28: - Yasir Arafat was in an expansive, feisty mood tonight, apparently buoyed by the visit of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Arafat even went so far as to declare that the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon - who has labeled him a murderer and a pathological liar - was "definitely" a potential peacemaking partner.

In a rare meeting with the foreign press, Mr. Arafat refused to be drawn into any criticism of the Israeli leader or the new American administration. On a day when he himself was treated by the senior American diplomat as a leader - and not as a gang leader, as Mr. Sharon had suggested earlier this week would be more appropriate - he was clearly determined to steer clear of invective as much as possible.

Asked for his reaction to Israeli news reports that Mr. Sharon would consider offering the Palestinians "as much as" 56 percent of the West Bank - he had originally talked of 42 percent - Mr. Arafat widened his eyes in mock delight and whistled. "Fifty-what?" he said in English, his arm slung over the back of his chair. "Fifty-six? Whew. Too much."

Mr. Arafat reminded his audience that Mr. Sharon, as the Israeli foreign minister, had participated in negotiating an interim peace agreement at the Wye River Plantation in Maryland in 1998.

"Did you forget?" he thundered. "That he was with me in Wye River?"

Someone called out that Mr. Sharon had refused to shake his hand during that meeting.

"It is not important to shake hands with me," Mr. Arafat said. "What is important is that he signed beside me."

Mr. Arafat's aides insisted that tonight's forum, which was held inside the Palestinian leader's heavily secured compound here, was not a press conference. Never mind the horseshoe-shaped table, the microphones, the question-and-answer format. It was a "chat" with the chairman. And to the best of his advisers' recollections, it was the first such chat with foreign correspondents assigned to the region that Mr. Arafat had held since he returned from Tunis.

Mr. Arafat sat beneath a huge poster of the Dome of the Rock. He looked vigorous, and his lips, which have quivered badly in recent years, barely shook at all. He spoke mostly in English, bantering with the ministers who surrounded him and jousting with reporters. After he made a claim that Israelis were uprooting olive trees dating from the Roman Empire on a scale that had never been seen elsewhere, a British reporter challenged him: "What about in Kenya? It's a long British imperial tradition."

Mr. Arafat looked taken aback, then immediately demanded, "Olive trees? They were olive trees?"

The British reporter acknowledged that they were not precisely olive trees that were uprooted in Kenya. And Mr. Arafat, looking triumphant, said, "Did he forget he was speaking to Yasir Arafat?" It is a phrase that he repeated in several variations over the course of the conversation.

Although many Palestinians believe that the Americans cannot be neutral arbiters of the conflict here because they are so close to Israel, Mr. Arafat insisted that he does not agree and expressed repeatedly his appreciation of the American government's involvement here. He thanked Secretary Powell, President Bush, former President Clinton, former President George Bush and Secretary Powell again.

Asked whether he was offended that Mr. Bush had not yet invited him to the White House, Mr. Arafat said he wasn't concerned because he was in almost daily telephone contact with Secretary Powell and had regular contact with President Bush.

But Nabil Shaath, a senior adviser, said afterward that indeed Mr. Arafat thought it was not fair since Mr. Sharon had already visited the new American president twice.

"There is a lack of parallelism," Mr. Shaath said. "But when I was in the States, Arafat specifically asked me not to raise this issue. What he was saying tonight was, `This is not something I will beg for'."

Mr. Arafat repeated several times that he was "not asking for the moon" but for Israeli compliance with agreements signed "in Oslo, in Paris, in Washington, in Wye River, in Cairo, in Sharm el Sheik."

Mr. Arafat also said he was "really optimistic at steps being taken now" to cement the cease-fire and move beyond it, back toward negotiations. He once again called for international monitors to oversee the process, which the Israelis oppose. Some 10 European observers in the Bethlehem area had helped restore calm there, he said, "and we hope that this will be increased by others."

During the meeting, Jibril Rajoub, a senior security chief, interrupted to whisper in Mr. Arafat's ear and then left hastily. Mr. Arafat said at first that the interruption concerned the timing of a conversation he was due to have in the morning with Secretary Powell. Later, a reporter asked Mr. Arafat if he was pursuing the gunman responsible for the killing of a 28-year-old Israeli settler on a West Bank road in the late afternoon.

"I appreciate your concern but I would like also to see equal concern to the great number of Palestinians killed daily," Mr. Arafat rebuked the reporter. But then, his ideological point made, he softened and added: "Now I have to reveal what Rajoub told me. He was following up on my instructions on this matter. We are doing something."

In response to another question, Mr. Arafat said he rejected the idea of some Palestinian militants that while attacks inside Israel were forbidden under the cease-fire, the settlers were fair game. "For us, they are Israelis," he said. But the question provoked a speech about the settlements and about broken Israeli promises to limit their growth.

Mr. Arafat reiterated his view that he would not arrest Islamic militants wanted by Israel. "I am not looking for Hamas or Islamic Jihad because we respect all these parties and there is a union between all of us," he said. "Are there any Israelis who have killed Palestinians who are in Israeli jails now?"

But anyone who is planning future attacks will be "apprehended, questioned and incarcerated," he said.

Mr. Arafat did not suffer gladly what he thought were foolish questions. A reporter suggested that it might be considered progress that Mr. Sharon would be willing to recognize a Palestinian state. The whole process of peacemaking was supposed to lead to a Palestinian state, Mr. Arafat said in an exasperated voice. Why else would there have been a need to negotiate borders, he asked.

"For your information, the number of countries who are recognizing a Palestinian state are more than those who recognize Israel," he said. "And for Israel, you remember, it was increased only after the shaking hands of me and my partner Rabin at the White House. This opened all the doors, from Senegal and Tunisia to China and in between."
Mid-East Realitieswww.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/7/264.htm