Arafat's legacy of missed opportunities

COLIN RUBENSTEIN

The Daily Telegraph, November 6, 2004

THROUGHOUT the past four decades, Yasser Arafat has personified the destructive contradiction that is at the heart of Palestinian nationalism.

While he has embodied the quest for Palestinian statehood, his refusal to relinquish terrorism and accept the legitimacy of the Jewish State thwarted that very objective.

On Arafat's watch, the Palestinians have lurched from miscalculation to hallucination on a long slow slide of self-inflicted trials, troubles and tribulations.  

The Palestinians rejected every major peace offer, save one, and they reneged upon the terms of that sole agreement - the 1993 Oslo Accord - that Arafat signed. And foremost within this catalogue of rejection is the far-reaching offer of an independent Palestinian state on 97 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza made by president Bill Clinton and Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak at Camp David and Taba in 2000/2001.

By repeatedly spurning every serious diplomatic initiative, Arafat personified the observation by former Israeli foreign minister Abba Ebban that "the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity".

The consequences for the Palestinian population have been little short of disastrous. And their resultant misery has been substantially worsened by misappropriation of funds, cronyism and general corruption.

Yet, despite all of the policy misjudgements, and Arafat amassing more than $400 million in personal European bank accounts, he seems to exhibit an enduring hold on the Palestinian national imagination.

While second-string political players like Gaza security chief Mohammad Dahlan or former Palestinian prime minister Abu Mazen have recently been jockeying for political position, no serious challenger to Arafat's rule has ever emerged.

This is due, in part, to his ruthlessly authoritarian and Machiavellian internal political manoeuvres but, the Palestinian people must also bear some responsibility for tolerating such anti-democratic antics.

The bottom line: Arafat was never willing to make the transition from terrorist to peacemaker. He talked the talk of co-existence with Israel, but all the while he walked the walk of collusion with the terrorist radicals of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and his own Al-Aqsa Brigade - dedicated to the Jewish state's destruction.

Arafat has led the Palestinians down the primrose path of futility and frustration. But the price of Arafat's failures has been borne by a Palestinian people who are now poorer and more miserable.

It's hoped the post-Arafat era will see the emergence of a responsible Palestinian leadership with the courage to accept true co-existence with Israel, alleviating the suffering of Jews and Arabs alike.

* Dr Colin Rubenstein is executive director of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council.