A chance for peace, or more conflict?

Nov 11th 2004 From The Economist Global Agenda

The death of Yasser Arafat was announced on Thursday morning. The

SOME are lamenting the passing of the leader of a great struggle for freedom; others
are celebrating the demise of a notorious terrorist chief. Either way, the decades-
long conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians seems set to enter a new phase
following the death of Yasser Arafat, aged 75, in the early hours of Thursday
November 11th. Tributes of varying sincerity poured in from around the world,
including from politicians who had regarded the veteran Palestinian leader as, at
best, an annoyance. Israel, however, did not mince words: its justice minister,
Tommy Lapid, expressed “deep hatred for a man who made terrorism a method in
the world.” President George Bush was studiedly neutral, calling Mr Arafat's death “a
significant moment in Palestinians' history.”

Mr Arafat did not groom a successor and, for the time being at least, a collective
leadership will take his place. Ahmed Qurei, his prime minister, will continue in day-
to-day control of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Another moderate, Mahmoud Abbas,
a former prime minister, has succeeded Mr Arafat as chairperson of the Palestine
Liberation Organisation. But his job as leader of the Fatah political party has gone to
Farouk Kaddoumi, a hardliner currently in exile. The speaker of the Palestinian
assembly, Rahwi Fattouh, has been made caretaker president of the PA in Mr Arafat's
place, with the task of organising an election within 60 days.

In the fortnight that Mr Arafat lay in a hospital near Paris, a farcical scene unfolded
around his deathbed, with his wife, Suha, trying to stop Palestinian officials seeing
him and accusing them of trying to “bury him alive”. In turn, she was criticised for
having spent the past three years living in luxury in Paris instead of being at her
husband’s side. Further rows are now in prospect over the millions—perhaps billions
—of dollars of Palestinian money Mr Arafat stashed away in various investments
around the world. Given the corruption allegations that have swirled around the PA
and its leader over the years, Palestinians are justifiably worried that their patrimony
might disappear.

Mr Arafat's wish was to be buried in Al-Quds (Jerusalem), the holy city that he
aspired to make the capital of a free Palestine, and in which he claimed to have been
born—though biographers say he was in fact born in Cairo. Israel rejected this but
agreed to a compromise, under which Mr Arafat will be buried alongside his bombed-
out headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, where he had spent the past
two years living under siege. Before that, there will be a funeral service in Cairo,
attended by heads of government and foreign ministers.

As a youth, Mr Arafat fought in the 1948 war that led to Israel’s birth and created
hundreds of thousands of Arab refugees. This war sowed the seeds of a conflict that,
besides bringing decades of suffering for Palestinians and Israelis, has long poisoned
relations between the Arab world and the western powers that back Israel—and has
latterly served as a recruiting sergeant for Islamist terror groups worldwide. After
Israel captured the remaining territories that the Palestinians wanted for their own
state, in another war in 1967, Mr Arafat quickly emerged as the leader of a radical
resistance movement that was prepared to hijack and bomb civilians.

Though Mr Arafat publicly renounced terrorism and accepted Israel’s right to exist as
far back as 1988, his critics accused him of continuing to wink at Palestinian
militants’ attacks. Perhaps his greatest blunder was at the Camp David summit of
2000, when he rejected Israel’s offer to return to the Palestinians a larger chunk of
the West Bank than they may ever be offered again. Soon after this came the launch
of an intifada (struggle) by Palestinian militants, since when more than 1,000 Israelis
have perished—and more than three times as many Palestinians.
The latest in a string of unsuccessful, internationally backed peace plans, the “road
map”, began to fall apart within weeks of being launched last year. But despite Mr
Arafat’s repeated failure to clamp down on the militants, and despite the growing
evidence of corruption and chaos in the PA over which he presided, his people
remained reluctant, right to the end, to criticise the “old man” himself, instead
blaming those around him.

The end of Mr Arafat’s 35-year reign as the figurehead of his people’s struggle for
statehood—and his replacement with a Palestinian leadership likely to be more
palatable to Israel and America—offer the chance of a fresh start for the stalled
Middle East peace process. For the past two years, Mr Bush and the Israeli prime
minister, Ariel Sharon, had refused to talk to Mr Arafat, accusing him of continuing to
foment terrorism. The result was that the Palestinians’ leader was unable to do
business with either of the two countries on whom their hopes of independent
statehood most depend.

His death comes at a time when Mr Bush has been re-elected on a strengthened
mandate and Mr Sharon has been making progress on his plan to withdraw Israeli
troops and settlers from the Gaza strip. Mr Bush might now be emboldened to press
his friend Mr Sharon to make concessions—in particular, to cease military incursions
in the occupied territories, stop assassinating militant leaders, release prisoners and
ease travel curbs on Palestinians. If he could no longer claim to have no credible
interlocutor on the Palestinian side, Mr Sharon would also be under pressure to co-
ordinate the proposed Gaza pull-out with the PA leadership, rather than go it alone,
and to reopen talks on the creation of a Palestinian state.

Mr Sharon has so far shown determination in pushing through his Gaza plan, against
fierce resistance from the settler movement and its backers, including many in his
own Likud party. The Knesset has voted in favour of the withdrawal and a bill
compensating the displaced settlers. This week, Israel’s finance minister, Binyamin
Netanyahu, dropped a threat to quit the cabinet unless a referendum were called on
the Gaza plan, though the National Religious Party, a smaller member of the
governing coalition, said it was quitting. The main opposition Labour Party has,
however, pledged to support the plan.

Assuming it goes ahead, the withdrawal might encourage Hamas and the other main
Palestinian militant groups to call a truce, making it possible to restart the
diplomacy. While Mr Arafat was in hospital, PA leaders agreed to implement a long-
delayed plan to improve security in the Palestinian territories, under which militant
groups will be expected to stop carrying guns unless engaging with Israeli forces.
However, on Thursday Hamas issued a defiant statement in which it said, “the loss of
the great leader will increase our determination and steadfastness to continue jihad
and resistance against the Zionist enemy.”

In any case, the successful implementation of the security plan will need not just the
goodwill of the militants; it will also depend on the unity of the PA leadership. And a
protracted power struggle between his possible successors cannot be ruled out. Mr
Abbas and Mr Qurei are the leading candidates for Palestinian president from within
the PA. Both men would be acceptable negotiating partners to the Israelis and
Americans. But they are not popular among ordinary Palestinians, who might prefer
someone like Marwan Barghouti, a pragmatic young Fatah leader—though he is
currently in an Israeli jail serving a life sentence for involvement in attacks on
Israelis (which he denies).

Will the various leaders of the Palestinian struggle now pull together to seek a
negotiated peace with the Israelis? Or will they spend months or years squabbling
while the bloodshed continues? Anything less than a complete ceasefire might give
Mr Sharon the perfect excuse to continue doing things his own way instead of
returning to the negotiating table. Israelis and Palestinians have seen many
opportunities for a lasting peace come and go, so their hopes are unlikely to be
raised too far by this one.