tinyurl.com/42bqr -> www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis/2004/11/12/710607.html
Yasser Arafat, who died yesterday, tirelessly waged a four-decade struggl e to right the deep injustices his people had suffered. In the process, he met and overcame more daunting obstacles than any other modern leader . Virtually all men's hands were against the 55 million Palestinian refuge es whose ancestral lands had been seized by Israel in the 1948 and 1967 wars. The Palestinian state called for by the UN in 1949 was secretly di vided up by Israel, Jordan and Egypt. Stateless Palestinians became sand in the eye of the Mideast; abused or c ynically misused by their heartless Arab "brothers," and relentlessly op pressed by Israel, which wanted their land. Israeli PM Golda Meir even claimed Palestinians did not exist. The highly effective Zionist slogan that Palestine was "a land without people for a people without land," however untrue, became the prevailing view in No rth America. In the mid-1960s, Arafat, an engineer, took control of the floundering Pa lestinian movement at a time when no one recognized or cared about this destitute people. With infinite patience, serpentine cunning, and unshakable determination, Arafat almost single-handedly awakened Palestinian nationalism and crea ted the dream of a sovereign Palestinian state. Along the way, Arafat and his lieutenants resorted to what we call terror ism -- the only way the weak can fight the strong. Had Palestinians not employed violence, the world would have totally ignored their plight. For the past 40 years, each day for Arafat was a life-and-death struggle. He faced Palestinian rivals like crazed killer Abu Nidal, Israeli and A merican attempts to kill or overthrow him, plots and attempted assassina tions by Arab states, and massacres in Lebanon that killed thousands of Palestinians. Abu Amar, as he was known, led a people without land, money, support, res pect, or friends. Yet he somehow managed to create something close to a real nation. In spite of his tough talk, Arafat sought peace with Israel on numerous o ccasions based on an Arab state holding 21% of original Palestine. But e ach time, the Israelis moved the goalposts away and stalled, intent on b uying time to finish colonizing the West Bank and Golan. Only in his Oslo peace accords with Israel's PM Yitzhak Rabin did Arafat really come close to a just settlement. But Rabin was murdered by Israel i far-rightists determined to expand the Jewish state. Further peace eff orts were wrecked by Rabin's successors -- and Arafat's indecision. Israel long followed a policy of assassinating or jailing promising Pales tinian leaders. Indeed, this writer believes Arafat may have been murder ed by an untraceable toxin. Both Israel and the administration of US president George Bush want a " moderate" Palestinian leadership. I'd suggest this translates to weak le aders bribed into agreeing to Israel's continued hold on prime West Bank land and Golan, with weak, isolated little Arab Bantustans surrounded b y Israeli territory; barren, waterless or heavily Arab parts of the West Bank, plus the human garbage dump of Gaza that Israel does not want. The most popular, strongest Palestinian leader, Marawan Barghou ti, is a prisoner in Israel. Convicted of several counts of murder but h ailed across the Arab world as the Palestinian Nelson Mandela, Barghouti , like his mentor Arafat, calls for peace with Israel. But Israeli PM Ar iel Sharon apparently plans, as a senior aide recently revealed in a rar e moment of candour, to plunge the peace talks "into formaldehyde." In waging his epic struggle, Arafat made many grave mistakes. He was auto cratic, allowed corruption to flourish, and always secretive. His manage ment of Palestinian finances may well blow up into a tawdry scandal tarn ishing his reputation. He was seen even by Arab admirers as too foxy and clever by half. But without Arafat, Palestinians would have remained a phantom, forgotten people. He led them to within distant sight of their own Promised Land.
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