Yasser Arafat was uniquely suited to his people’s needs when he founded Fateh, one of the first Palestinian resistance organizations in the late sixties. They were dispossessed, without a state to defend them, a territory to hold them, or a political strategy to unite them. He offered them a chance to shake off the feeling of helplessness that overtook them after the catastrophic events of 1948, and gave them hope for a future that would fulfill their dreams to restore their lost homeland. They were dispersed all over the Middle East and abroad, and his paramount goal was to unite them.
Perhaps Arafat’s greatest achievement was his success at building bridges between the Palestinians in the Diaspora and those on the inside, those who succeeded in rebuilding their lives in neighboring Arab countries and those who were still stuck in the refugee camps. Rich and poor, young and old, intellectuals and illiterate workers, men and women, secularists and fundamentalists, all rose together and joined him in igniting the Palestinian revolution that is still in center stage after forty plus years of continued struggle and seemingly insurmountable setbacks. Along the way, Arafat became a symbol of Palestinian nationhood, Palestinian struggle for justice, and Palestinian perseverance and hunger for survival. He was a revolutionary leader, tribesman, spokesman, family elder, diplomat, and politician all at once. In later years, he was often criticized for his style, but his preeminent status as a genuinely national Palestinian leader was seldom questioned.
Mahmoud Abbas, the man chosen to succeed him, is radically different in temperament as well as in style. While Arafat often led with inexhaustible bravado, Abbas is unassuming and understated. Even though his credentials in the Palestinian nationalist movement are guaranteed after four decades of serving alongside Arafat in the PLO Executive Committee, he has deliberately shunned the limelight and is content with being a behind-the-scenes player. He is guided by a genuine faith in the power of logic and reason, and to this end, he firmly believes that if Palestinians make a fair case, they can get a fair hearing. He does not support armed struggle against Israel because he does not believe that it is a cost-effective way of resisting the occupation. It strikes him as pointless, because it is using the Palestinians weakest weapon to assail Israel’s strongest flank. Instead, he believes that the Palestinians ought to engage in serious negotiations with the Israelis, talk in a language that Washington understands, and rally the international community to the Palestinian cause by showing restraint and passive resistance.
Abbas is clearly not a manipulative man, and he abhors political expediency. Whereas Arafat immersed himself in local politics, Abbas floats above it, and trusts that things will work out so long as one sticks to a core set of principles. He has articulated these principles without ambiguity and he made it clear that he is unwilling to depart from them or compromise. In 1999, he presented a proposal to U.S. officials in which he clearly articulated basic and unalterable Palestinian requirements to seal a final deal with Israel: the creation of an independent Palestinian state within the borders of June 4th, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the recognition of the principle of the refugees right of return. Within those parameters and consistent with international law, he left room for discussion. There would be minor and equitable swaps of land to take account of some Israeli settlements; provisions to allow Jews unimpeded access to their holy sites; and the right of return would be implemented in a manner that would not threaten Israel’s demographic interests. But prior acceptance of the basic proposal was paramount, for without it there could be neither international legitimacy nor a just peace. That, in a nutshell, is where Abbas stands on the issue. Convinced that that is the only reasonable and acceptable formula that would guarantee a lasting peace, he is unlikely to change his mind. He would much rather bide his time and continue negotiating until, in due course, people see it his way.
His belief in persuasion and principle over violent resistance may be accepted for now by the 60 percent of Palestinians who voted for him. They are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it is understood that he does not have an infinite amount of time to produce results. Palestinian patience is already stretched too thin, and if he fails to improve the quality of their lives in a way that is tangible in the foreseeable future, it is likely that they will lose faith and break rank. The 40 percent that did not vote for him think that his approach is risky and reckless. As they see it, Palestinians did not militarize the confrontation, Israel did. From the opening weeks of the Intifada until the present time, the overwhelming number of casualties were Palestinian, not Israeli. When tentative and informal cease-fires were reached, Israel always breached them. If Palestinians stopped fighting, they would unilaterally disarm, removing all pressure on Israel to compromise. In the meantime, the separation wall, which is part of a suspected broader plan to impose long-term, de facto borders that will divide the West Bank into cantons, will continue to be built. The bottom line is that the Palestinians have never trusted Sharon, whose age-old objective has always been the total subjugation of the Palestinians in the Promised Land. Too much separates them, and Palestinians hold little hope that a comprehensive settlement can ever be reached with Sharon.
Abbas concedes that Ariel Sharon may not be the ideal partner to negotiate with. But he thinks that if the immediate period is not the time for bilateral agreement, there is nothing to preclude taking unilateral steps, with Israel withdrawing from Gaza and the northern West Bank, and the Palestinians putting their house in order. He believes that the post-Sharon stage can be prepared for by rebuilding Palestinian institutions, renouncing violence, rekindling international ties, and demanding that Washington pressure Israel to release Palestinian prisoners and cease the construction of new settlements. Many skeptics see this as wishful thinking on his part. They think that in the real world, thorny issues are seldom resolved with pure logic and reason.
The challenges that face Abbas are horrendous. He has to walk a tightrope, appeasing his bruised and battered people without alienating the Israelis; focusing on material improvement without neglecting political issues; maintaining Israeli and American confidence without losing that of Hamas or of Islamic Jihad; fulfilling U.S. demands without appearing to comply with all of its wishes; ending the violence without seeming to submit to Israel; and, of course, moving away from Arafat’s legacy without breaking with it. There are, too, a series of unanswered questions. What will happen if Abbas cannot deliver what the U.S. and Israel require, and what will happen if Bush and Sharon do not produce what Abbas needs? What if Abbas is unable to reach a deal with Hamas and Fateh militants, or, what if he does but Israel continues its military attacks? And the biggest question of all, what if the U.S. fails to pressure Israel, or Israel fails to respond? When one puts all of the above together, it becomes clear that Abbas not only needs the wisdom of Solomon to guide him on the perilous road ahead, he also needs lots of luck and the grace of God Almighty.
Noha Ismail is a Palestinian-American who has lived in Minnesota for the past 35 years. Throughout this period she has been an advocate for Palestinian human, civil, and national rights. She was the president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) from 1985 to 1992, and served on the board of ADC from 1986 to 1990. |
