On the occasion of his death, the Middle East Committee of Women Against Military Madness acknowledges Yasser Arafat, who, in the wake of the devastation of the 1948 war, earned recognition as the father of contemporary Palestinian national consciousness throughout the Arab world and beyond. In spite of the calumny heaped upon him by so many in the Western world, Arafat persevered against heavy odds with uncompromising singleness of purpose in his quest for the dignity and rights of abused Palestinians.
The resistance that Arafat led was not nonviolent, much as we would have wished it. International law, however, recognizes the right to armed resistance of people living under occupation, and Arafat likewise regarded the use of violence as a lawful response to Israel’s violent oppression of his people. Nevertheless, he did renounce terrorism and contrary to incessant propaganda stating otherwise, Arafat repeatedly condemned, in Arabic and in English, suicide bombings. After the 1993 Oslo Accords, he personally rejected the use of violence—even as the illegal settlements in the Palestinian West Bank authorized by Israel doubled.
It is well to remember that in 1994 Arafat was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, along with Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East.” His “huge achievement” (so described by Israeli journalist Uri Avnery) came in spite of Israelís colossal material superiority in all fields, the hostility of the Arab governments, and the worldwide sympathy for Israel as the state of the Holocaust survivors.
We call upon the Bush Administration, as well as the international community, to support the Palestinian people in their quest for justice, peace, freedom and full equality in the land of their ancestors. |
