MER Editorial

Where and How to Properly Bury
Yasser Arafat

Part II

Yasser Arafat at the Grave of Nasser in Cairo in 1970

MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER Editorial - Washington - 10 November: Last Sunday MER Editorialized that the Arab League in Cairo should be the place of Arafat's funeral and burial. Today Egypt has 'offered', some among the Palestinian 'leadership' seem to have accepted, and in a limited way it now appears Yasser Arafat's body may first be flown to Cairo airport for a funeral ceremony in which the Arab League will be in some way involved; and then on to Ramallah, to his Muqata, for burial.

It's convenient of course for the various 'Arab leaders', heads of 'client regimes', international representatives, and the Israelis as well, to have a limited and carefully choreographed Cairo Airport funeral. It's also no doubt the wish of Egyptian and foreign security services who still fear that as it becomes more widely known and understood that Arafat was assassinated and so much about his murder covered up that popular passions could still get out of hand.

But such an Airport Funeral for a few hours, if that's really what is now planned, is not the way this should be done.

Arafat's body should be taken to Arab League headquarters in downtown Cairo. There he should Lie in State and the Arab public given an opportunity to pay their respects. There a world-wide funeral service should be held for all who will come representing their peoples and governments from throughout the world. There a fitting and lasting memorial to the Palestinian people and their struggle for independence and freedom should be erected on the spot where Arafat's body lied in State.

And then Arafat's body should be brought to Ramallah where his own people, the Palestinian people, can all join in a very public funeral, a very public burial, and a historic public ceremony not simply marking the death of Yasser Arafat but highlighting the cause for which he lived, for which he is mourned, and for his eventual burial a few miles away in historic Jerusalem once the Israeli tanks and American machinations are no longer in the way.

And when Arafat's body is flown from Cairo to Ramallah representatives of the Arab League, of all the Arab countries, and of all the countries who have long recognized the PLO and long called for a free and independent Palestinian State, should accompany the body whether the Israelis give their 'permission' or not. They should in this way not only show their respects for Arafat the symbolic man but for the imprisoned and all-too-forgotten people he leaves behind, half in refugee camps, half increasingly behind walls and fences in ghettos and concentration camps.

And they should in this way show their support for and understanding of the Palestinian Intifada. For this is the time for a little courage, a little dignity, after all the sordid and tragic history of the past decades and especially the past few horrendous years that have now lead to Yasser Arafat's murder.

Originally Published by MER on Sunday 7 November

MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER Editorial - Washington - 7 November: There are no good choices at this point in history other than Jerusalem.

Burial under occupation in Gaza Ghetto or in walled-off Ramallah orchestrated by Ariel Sharon and the Israeli military is not the way to go. Burial in France or a Western country is not the way to go.

The best 'solution' to this hugely symbolic historic moment under all the circumstances is burial in the capital city of the Arab League - Cairo.

Far better symbolism than burial under the dictate of Israeli military occupation and today's apartheid conditions is 'temporary' burial in the city where the headquarters of the Arab League is located, indeed in a special crypt on the grounds of the Arab League in downtown Cairo.

Then, when the Palestinians finally someday in the future achieve their free and independent State, the remains of Yasser Arafat can be transferred to Jerusalem where everyone knows he long wanted to be buried and surely deserves to be buried.

Until that time Arafat's shrine in the largest Arab capital at the center of Arab affairs on the very grounds of the Arab League will serve as a constant reminder of what Yasser Arafat truly came to symbolize to his people, to the Arab and Muslim peoples, and to the world.