The most dramatic moment arrived in the evening after Yom Kippur.
We were sitting in the courtyard of Arafat’s Mukat’ah (compound); a group of Israeli peaceactivists and Palestinian friends, senior Palestinian Authority officials. A pleasantmild wind was blowing after a hot day. We were chatting about the situation (what else?) and thelatest gossip about the Palestinian leadership. From time to time a senior Palestinianjoined us, before going up to see the President, or coming back from him.
The tall figure of Jibril Rajoub emerged from between the sand sacks that defend the entranceof the building. He had seen Arafat and joined our group for a few minutes. “We have heard thatthe Israeli cabinet is about to meet,” he announced darkly.
We all understood the meaning of that. A meeting of the cabinet – what could that mean? What ifnot an attack on the Mukata’ah?
Rajoub entered his black car and sped off on his business. We exchanged some words about thepossibility of an attack – and then, suddenly, all the lights in the compound went off. A deadsilence ensued. From afar we heard the approaching drone of an airplane.
Nobody said anything. In the brain a thought was passing: “So that’s it!”
And then the light went on, as suddenly as they had gone turned off. The plane in the air passed usand flew on in the direction of Amman. We continued to talk as if nothing had happened.
Earlier on that day, the atmosphere had become tense for a different reason. At noon, one of thevolunteers came back to the compound and recounted that, while he was sitting in a coffee shop,shouts were heard: “The Israelis are coming!” The owner of the shop urged his guests to runaway, even without paying. Soon after, two army jeeps appeared. From afar, the sirens ofambulances could be heard. The two jeeps went on to the narrow street in front of the Muhata’ah,where they went back and forth. Inside, the rumor spread quickly. It looked like areconnaissance patrol before the attack. The jeeps went off to Ramallah’s central square.The children of the neighborhood threw stones at them. I matter of routine. Calm returned.
The moment we heard about the shocking atrocity in Haifa, on Saturday afternoon, weunderstood that we had to hurry to the Mukata’ah. Within an hour, a small group of ten Israelipeace-activists was organized. Somehow we succeeded in entering Ramallah, which wassurrounded and cut off by the Israeli army. With us were also some 30 international peaceactivists from many countries.
If we had more time, the group might have been larger. But it was the Jewish holiday season, manyof potential participants were abroad, others could not join on such short notice. But for us,time was of the essence.
It was clear that Ariel Sharon would try to exploit the outrage of the Jihad, in which wholefamilies were killed, in order to realize his dream of many years: to kill Yasser Arafat. Thatwas so obvious that a question arose automatically: Was this, perhaps, the real aim of theinitiators to start with?
The suicide bomber was a young female lawyer, who wanted to take personal revenge: both herbrother and her fiance were killed by the Israeli army. In the Palestinian territories thereare now thousands of such people, men and women, and each of them a ticking bomb. They do not needany political reason. An Israeli who orders the killing of Palestinians, men, women andchildren, must know that this may well be the result.
But the Islamic Jihad organization has taken responsibility for the action. Thereby thepersonal vendetta became a political act. A political act has political aims. And the aimcould only be connected to the fact that – as all the world knows – Sharon is ready to kill Arafatat any minute. The Israeli government has already officially decided to “remove” Arafat.(Abroad, this word has been falsified into “expel”). Only the Americans are preventing this,for the time being. But after a major outrage the American red light might change into green, orat least into yellow. For Sharon, the slightest yellowish flicker is enough to execute hisplan.
A Palestinian organization that sends a suicide bomber in such circumstances knows that itsaction will not only kill and wound dozens of Israelis, women, man and children, but may alsocause the death of the Palestinian leader. It seems that the Jihad – or somebody within theJihad – desires this. He hopes that the killing of Arafat will cause the collapse of thePalestinian Authority, general anarchy throughout the country, the creation of hundreds ofterrorist cells in the Palestinian territories and the raise of Jihad’s prestige sky high.
As it sometimes happens in history, the interests of Jihad are meeting the interests ofSharon. In order to realize his policy – the removal of the Palestinian Authority, theenlargement of the settlements all over the country and the domination of Israel over all thePalestinian territories – he need an atmosphere of anarchy and an ever-widening cycle ofbloodshed. Arafat is an obstacle in his way, and therefore he wants to “remove” him – to the nextworld.
Exactly for this reason, a consistent Israeli peace movement worth its name must doeverything to prevent this act. The killing of Arafat would be a historical disaster for theState of Israel, because it would mean the elimination of any chance for peace for generationsto come and the increase of bloodshed to dimension unknown until now.
Therefore we decided to prevent this disaster with the paltry resources at our disposal.
The reception at the Mukata’ah was tumultuous. Dozens of TV teams from all over the world, andespecially from the Arab world, were crowded in the courtyard and pounced on us. Questionswere showered on us from all sides and in several languages.
One question turned up again and again: “Do you believe that you can stop an attack by Sharon?”
We all answered candidly that we don’t know. We cannot stop tanks, warplanes, trainedsoldiers or disabling gas. But we hope that the very knowledge that in the compound there is agroup of Israelis, as well as internationals, may constitute one more factor that will be puton the scales when Sharon and his generals make the decision. If the arguments for and againoutweigh each other, this factor may prove decisive.
(The next day, it was mentioned in the media that one of the participants in the “securityconsultation” did indeed raise this point.)
The hour was already late and we were shown our accommodations. In a large hall that has beenrestored after the destruction, mattresses were put along the walls, each one with a thickblanket. Next to the hall, new and reasonable toilets were built. At one side of the hall weretables with boxes of coffee and tea, bottles of light drinks, pitta bread, hard cheese andconserves.
One of Arafat’s assistants, Dr. Sami Mussalam, informed us that the Ra’is was sick and hadstayed today in bed, but would receive us tomorrow morning. In the meantime, he saw to all ourneeds.
After the hours of organization and traveling, we were quite hungry and tired. We tried to getthe news over Israel radio and chose mattresses for ourselves. There were different opinionsabout what was the best place in case of bombing from the air, as opposed to storming bysoldiers. The toilets? The entrances? All of us slept in his clothes. Most did not even take offtheir shoes. For all events, the lights were not put out altogether.
It was possible to sleep only in fits. All through the night the mobile telephones did not stopringing. People from America, Europe, South Africa and Asia kept asking for interviews. Wehad, so it seemed, become objects of international curiosity.
At six o’clock in the morning I was woken up by the ringing of the mobile phone. I ran outside, soas not to disturb the dozens of sleeping people. A young lady from one of the morning talk showswanted to know if I was ready to give an interview at seven o’clock.
Generally I would not have been overjoyed by this, but this time I was in a good mood. A wholenight had passed without anything terrible happening.
I remained outside. The courtyard was empty, except for a few soldiers on duty. I took a chairand sat in a corner.
Above me, in the gentle breeze, hundreds of small Palestinian flags were waving on strings, inaddition to the larger flags in the roof. (Once they were called “PLO flags”, and anyone who hadone in his possession was liable to go to prison for three years.) On the walls that surround thecourtyard on three sides (two buildings left standing and the famous bridge between them)were colorful posters left over from the mass solidarity demonstration after the “removal”decision of the Sharon government.
“Our soul, all our soul, to the commander and symbol, brother Abu Amar” said one of them. AbuAmar is Arafat’s nom de guerre . Another, by the Ministry for Refugee Affairs, said: “Forbrother Arafat, the symbol of our struggle, the support of the tents of the Palestinianpeople”. On one of the posters where the pictures of the Dome of the Rock and the Church of theSepulcher. On all of the posters, Arafat with his famous keffiye (checkered headdress). Thegolden Dome of the Rock and the picture of Arafat are the two symbols of the Palestinianstruggle, apart from the flag. The word “symbol” (Rams, in Arabic) appeared on all the posterswithout exception.
On one of the wall was hanging a two-floors high cloth with hundreds of little handprints in thePalestinian colors – red, green and black on a white background, a present from the children ofa refugee camp school.
That morning, all of this looked almost gay. The Mukata’ah was silent, the few guards seemedbored. Every soldier passing me said politely “Sabah al-Kheir” (good morning, in Arabic),and some even said “Boker Tov” (same in Hebrew). Perfect tranquility – but a deceptive one. Theknowledge that all this could be shattered in a moment, with the gay scene turning into a sceneof blood and death, was lingering in the back of the mind.
At about 11 o’clock, we were told that the Ra’is had got up from his sickbed and was ready toreceive the Israeli human shield members in the long meeting room.
Since then I have been asked dozens of times: How does he look? Well, he looked like somebodyweakened after an attack of the flu: paler and thinner. It seemed to me that it would have beenbetter for him to stay in bed for another day or two. But he had obviously compelled himself toget up.
He received us, the Israeli peace activists, with much feeling, smiling broadly, with muchshaking of hands and hugging. The fact that in such an emergency men and women from Israel hadcome to constitute a “human shield” had made a deep impression. He spoke about thisrepeatedly.
About a dozen TV teams were allowed into the room and started to record the meeting. Abu-Ala(Ahmad Kurei) also came. Arafat put him between me and himself and delivered a very strongcondemnation of Saturday’s suicide bombing. The Emergency Government of Brother Abu-Ala,he said, would take the strongest possible steps to put an end to such outrages.
I noticed the Israeli flag on his breast. A month ago, during another visit, I saw that he waswearing on the flap of the breast-pocket of his uniform jacket several emblems of crossedflags: Palestine-Canada, Palestine-Italy and so on. I removed from my shirt the Gush Shalomemblem – the crossed flags of Israel and Palestine – and put it in front of him. He picked it up atonce and put it on, above the others.
I was surprised that he had left it on and wore it on that day, too. (Two days later, at theswearing-in of the Abu-Ala government, he wore this Israeli flag on his chest.)
After the meeting, Arafat invited us and the international volunteers to lunch in the hallabove our sleeping quarters. On the long tables were the traditional dishes: mutton on rice,Sinia (hacked meat in Tehina), baked chicken parts. At the end, real Kenafeh from Nablus,considered the best in the world, was served. (Kenafeh is an Arab sweet with cheese).
Rachel and I were placed on the two sides of Arafat. Generally he eats very little and offerswith his hands choice morsels of meat or vegetables to honored guests. This time he sipped onlychicken soup specially prepared for him. He told Rachel, my wife, that he sticks to a strictdiet of chicken soup, which is the best after the attack of viral flu that had affected thestomach.
Among the guest at the Mukata’ah that day was also an Italian choir. Before and after lunch theyrendered the songs of the Italian partisans who had fought against the Fascist regime and theGermans. Emotions in the room ran high when everybody, including Arafat, held raised handsand joined in the singing. When they had finished, one of the internationals, a youngJapanese, rose and sang a beautiful Japanese peace song. It appeared that Naoto, whose exactage I could not guess, has studied sociology but decided to become a singer. He is a perfectmime, and his good spirits and innocent good-heartedness made him the darling of all thegroup.
In the end, a group photo was taken, and all Israelis and internationals grouped themselvesaround Arafat. It was hard to believe that this was no birthday party, but a meeting of peoplewho were risking their lives for peace.
Yom Kippur passed quietly. We saw the parade of Palestinian personalities that came and went,while the task of forming the government was progressing slowly. It was obvious that Arafat’sand Abu-Ala’s decision to form a narrow Emergency Government, consisting of only eightmembers (apart from the Prime Minister) had disappointed many central functionaries whoremained outside. All the personalities approached and greeted us warmly.
Arafat’s close assistant, Nabil Abu-Rudeina, was asked by journalists how Palestinianscould rely on the United States, the Arab countries, Europe or the United Nations. His answer:”We rely first of all on our Israeli friends.”
During all of the day, journalists called me from abroad (and from Israel, too, but I am notgoing to tell on those who called me on the holy Yom Kippur) and asked about the state of Arafat’shealth. It seemed that a lot of rumors, some of them quite crazy, were spread outside. Was ittrue that Arafat had been poisoned by Israel? I answered that Arafat himself had not mentionedthis during lunch.
At a corner of the courtyard an ambulance is parked permanently (the same was the practice inIsrael during the days of Begin.) In the evening, another ambulance came in. A lone men got downand approached the building in unhurried steps. I was told later that this was a friend of theresident doctor who lives in the Mukata’ah and had come to visit him. After some time he cameout, went to his ambulance, put on the flashing red light and drove off.
Within an hour I got frantic calls from Tel-Aviv. Was it true that Arafat had suffered a heartattack? Was it true that he had been sped to hospital? I could answer with certainty that thiswas untrue. Afterwards the rumor spread that he had suffered a light heart attack a few daysbefore. I am not a doctor, but if to judge by impressions, this rumor seems to me untrue.
On the morrow of Yom Kippur, the Abu-Ala government was sworn in. We, the members of the Israeligroup, stood in the first line, in the part of the hall reserved for the media who wererepresented massively. We wore the large sticker of the Gush, also consisting of the flags ofIsrael and Palestine.
The ceremony started late because of last minute problems (Palestinians, like Israelis,cannot do anything without last minute problems). Immediately after the ceremony was over,Arafat saw us, went directed up to us and hugged the Israeli activists before the massedcameras of the world.
That was a personal gesture, but a political one, too. The Palestinian leader wanted to showthe world that a settlement with Israel is the first item on the agenda of the new government.
For us it clear that with the setting up of the government, the imminent danger to the life ofArafat had – for the time being – passed, together with the terrible results his assassinationwould entail. After three days and nights we went home, ready to go there again if the need willarise, in order to do everything possible to prevent an act that would be a disaster for Israel.For us, that is the most important patriotic thing we can do.