General Montgomery had a photo of his opponent, the German general Erwin Rommel, on his desk.When he was asked why, he explained that at every stage of the campaign he would look at thepicture and asked himself: What does he think? What does he feel? What will he do?
It’s hard to imagine Ehud Barak putting a photo of Yasser Arafat on his desk. What for? Whyshould it be important what Arafat thinks? He, Barak, will tell him what to do.
Montgomery defeated Rommel and chased him out of North Africa. Barak, so it seems, will beevicted by Arafat from the Prime Minister’s office.
This week, again, all of Israel was busy guessing what Arafat will do: say Yes to Clinton? SayNo? Perhaps? Save Barak? Bring Sharon in instead? Even the most self-important commentatorswere wandering around like blind men in a forest.
The Israeli attitude towards Arafat merits a psychological, and perhaps psychiatric,study. It seems as if all the fears and hatreds accumulated on our side during the 120 years ofthe conflict between the two peoples are being projected unto this one person.
One could say that the one thing uniting Right and Left in Israel is the hatred of Arafat. Theydiffer only in the explanation. The Right hates Arafat because he is a “murderer”, a”terrorist” whose “only desire is to kill Jews”. The Left hates him because he is a “dictator”who “violates human rights”. It would be difficult to find even one article dealing with thePalestinians by an Israeli “leftist” without a reference to “the corrupt regime of Arafat”,now an obligatory phrase reminiscent of a Christian crossing himself.
There’s no use in reminding the Right that Nelson Mandela, Yitzhaq Shamir and Menachem Beginwere “murderers” and “terrorists”, not to mention Bar-Kochba and the Maccabees. Everyleader of a national liberation movement can be called thus. Also, there is no use in remindingthe Left that Kohl and Chirac have presided over corrupt regimes, that in the US presidents andsenators are openly bought by lobbies, that in Israel billions are spent to bribes thereligious parties while every fourth child lives under the poverty line.
The media people mention daily, as a self-evident fact, that Arafat “has broken everyagreement”. It would be a waste of time to remind them, too, that Israel has not implemented thethird withdrawal from most of the occupied territories nor opened the four “safe passages”,to mention only two of the many violations of the agreements, compared to which thePalestinian violations seem pale indeed.
No agreement compels Israelis to love Arafat, nor Palestinians to love the Prime Minister ofIsrael, whoever he may be. But, as Montgomery realized, making slight of your opponent cancause you to make mistakes of historic proportions.
At this point in time, the political life of Barak depends on the decisions of the Palestinianleader. It is Arafat who will decide who the next Prime Minister of Israel will be, since theelection results depend on whether there will be an agreement or not. But Barak understandsArafat as he would understand an alien from Mars. Since coming to power, he has been wrong inpractically all his calculations.
It starts with his misunderstanding of Arafat’s standing within the Palestinian people. Heis not a dictator. Like Washington, Ataturk and Ben-Gurion, he is the “father of the nation”.No Palestinian leader is ready to assume his place. Even Palestinians griping loudly aboutthe Authority – and they are many – are not suggesting that he be replaced. When asked about it,they say: No, Arafat must remain, but he must do this and that…
Haidar Abd-al-Shafi, the respected Gaza doctor who is one of Arafat’s most outspokencritics, once complained to me about Arafat’s way of making all the decisions himself, butadded honestly: “The truth is that we have to blame ourselves. Whenever the need arose to make acourageous decision, all the others disappeared and Arafat was left alone. He was the only onewho had the courage to decide.”
I can testify to this myself. Over the years I have submitted to the PLO leadership in Beirut andTunis ideas and suggestions for bringing peace nearer. Every time, when we reached agreementbetween us, they said: OK, now let’s take the matter to Abu-Amar, so he can make the decision.
That’s the situation now, too. The Palestinian leadership must take a historic decision thatdemands immense personal courage. But nobody is ready to share the responsibility withArafat. He stands alone again, and all the responsibility rests on him.
This does not mean that he can decide whatever he wants. Arafat listens to the feelings of thepeople. He has very sensitive sensors. Therein lies his unique strength. When he feels thatthe people are ready for the next step, he moves forward. When he feels that he has moved forwardtoo much, he stops, and sometimes moves backwards. This can drive his interlocutors, andsometimes even his own people, up the wall, but that’s the character of his leadership. For 50years he has led the Palestinian struggle for liberation, and for 25 years he has directed thetransition from armed struggle for the dismantling of Israel to the effort to reach apolitical solution with Israel – an immense revolution in the position of the Palestinianpeople. In this he has kept ahead of most of his colleagues and used all possible methods -diplomacy, violence, ruses, intifada and agreements. But not for a moment did he let thehistoric aim of the Palestinian people – the establishment of a state with its capital inJerusalem – out of his sight.
It is ridiculous to think that he would now give up this aim because Barak wants to be reelectedor because Clinton’s term of office is nearing its end. Of course, this provides anopportunity, and Arafat would seize it if he were given an offer he could accept. But when allthat is offered is that he declare the “end of the conflict” in return for a piece of paperwithout maps and a detailed solution, he will prefer to wait for the next President and the nextPrime Minister. After all, since the start of his leadership, Arafat has survived PresidentsEisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton, as well asPrime Ministers Ben-Gurion, Eshkol, Meir, Rabin, Begin, Shamir, Peres, again Rabin andPeres, Nethanyahu and Barak. In this time he has led his people from the brink of extinction tothe threshold of independence.
I have many good suggestions for Barak, Clinton and their successors. But my very firstsuggestion is: take a good photo of Arafat and put it on your desk.