After Arafat

by Rami G. Khouri

Yasser Arafat's deteriorating medical condition has sparked much speculation about whether the next Palestinian leadership would initiate new Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. This terrain is filled with unknown variables and unpredictable actors in half a dozen countries, so speculation is precisely what we engage in when discussing this matter. To move from speculation to more useful analysis and realistic expectation, we must make a sharp distinction between personality and politics.

To anticipate how the Palestinian leadership will behave after Arafat, one should grasp the realities that defined the long Arafat era itself.

Palestinian national policy and the tactics of any specific leadership both ultimately reflect the consensus of Palestinian public opinion -- one of the great virtues of the democratic accountability that re-elected President George Bush says he wants to promote throughout the Arab World. Yasser Arafat sat at the top of Palestinian national politics for nearly 40 years because of three critical factors: substance, strategy, and style.

The substance of his success was that he tirelessly reflected the identity, grievances, aspirations and rights of the average Palestinian man and woman in exile or under Israeli occupation, whether in refugee camps, Arab urban areas, or in foreign countries.

The strategy that allowed him to persist for so many years reflected his willingness to concede, retreat and regroup when necessary. But always he moved forward incrementally towards the goal of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip living alongside Israel, and including a just resolution of the refugees' status and claims.

The style that kept him so popular -- and legitimate -- among his people was his consistent ability to simultaneously defy and embrace those protagonists that mattered for his people's cause, namely Israel, the United States, and the Arab countries.

The critical common element among these dimensions of Arafat's life was not his personality, but his politics. He endured, and survived many obvious mistakes, for one consistent reason: at the end of every day he articulated, worked for, and sometimes fought for the legitimate aspirations of millions of Palestinian men and women. He not only symbolized the sentiments of Palestinians who were unjustly treated by modern history and have steadfastly refused to roll over, disappear, or die; he transformed their human grievances and aspirations into a tangible political force that engaged the region and the world. He was legitimate because his policies were anchored in the broad consensus of his refugee constituency.

No single person among the varied current crop of Palestinian national politicians, local leaders, civil society activists, and strongmen has the credibility or capability to assume Arafat's several political positions: elected president of the Palestinian Authority, the chairman of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the founder and head of the main Palestinian political group Fateh. (Fateh -- or FTH -- is the reverse order of the Arabic acronym for haraket tahrir filisteen, or the "Palestine Liberation Movement").

In the days ahead, Palestinian affairs are likely to be governed by a coalition of the main nationalist, Islamist and democratic renewal groups who will come together in a sort of government of national unity. Intense Arab and international pressure will be brought to bear on Palestinian and Israeli leaders to remain low key, and to use the opportunity of the transfer of power to a post-Arafat leadership to re-launch serious peace negotiations.

The new leaders, most of whom will be old, established Palestinian leaders like Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qorei, will quickly run into the same dilemma that Arafat juggled all his life: how can you remain faithful to, and credible with, your own people, while simultaneously advancing their cause and negotiating politically with Israel, the U.S. and the Arab states?

Palestinian leaders who give away too much to Israel and the U.S., without securing meaningful concessions and rights in return, will quickly find themselves totally marginalized among their own people. This is why Arafat did not cave in to the pressures that were exerted on him at the Camp David II talks in the U.S. in 2000. He knew that the majority of his people would reject the Israeli-American proposals offered there. The main stumbling bloc then and now remains the status and rights of the Palestinian refugees. If no new, reasonable compromise proposals are on offer to resolve the Palestine refugee issue while maintaining Israel's status as a predominantly Jewish state, there will be no hope for any progress in any peace talks, and nobody should waste time trying to achieve this.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders alike now face the monumental challenge of engaging their own people on this issue, which has always been the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict. We need more reasonable and feasible proposals on how to reconcile the rights of the Palestinians to end their refugee status, and the rights of Israelis to live in a secure, recognized, and predominantly Jewish state.

When a post-Arafat leadership assumes power, external mediation and direct contacts will probably achieve a brief pause in the current Israeli-Palestinian low intensity war, giving all sides the opportunity to explore serious negotiations for a permanent peace agreement. The success of any such talks for a permanent peace effort will depend on how effectively Israelis and Palestinians come to grips with the centrality of the Palestine refugee issue in a more reasonable manner than has been the case since 1948.

Forget about personalities. It's the refugee issue, stupid. The Palestinian leadership that comes up with a sensible, realistic policy for dealing with this core issue, and achieving Palestinian statehood alongside Israel, will be the credible, legitimate leadership that replaces Arafat. Everything else is speculation.


Rami G. Khouri is executive editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri ---------------- Released: 10 November 2004