One year after Palestinian president Yasser Arafat's death, and he has passed into silent myth and legend. As with all great historical figures, the myth is both powerful and pervasive. Yet in Arafat's case, it possesses a peculiar driving force that frames the manner in which we see the present.
Indeed, everything about the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel is shaped by this myth. In the West it is entirely a negative myth, cultivated by the press and parroted by political elites, diplomats and intellectuals. It is obvious why Israel would portray its enemy in such a bad light, but why did this negative myth take hold outside Israel with such strength and persuasion?
Myths have a function -- they are both practical and convenient. They help to justify reasons to do things and they justify reasons not to do things. The myth of Arafat as the obstacle to peace gave former US president Bill Clinton his reasons after Camp David; to maintain the myth of himself as international peacemaker, he needed a scapegoat to blame for the collapse of the talks.
Clinton underwrote then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak's portrayal of Arafat as a terrorist and an obstacle to peace in order that Barak could be re-elected. The myth instead gave rise to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, as the Israeli public felt only a Sharon could deal with that mythical monster Arafat. It gave the neoconservative hawks in the US administration the opportunity to redesign the Middle East in harmony with the views of their ally Israel, and for the British government to absolve themselves from doing anything whatsoever.
Instead, they watched, some cheering, while a democratically elected leader was imprisoned for years and slowly killed, without apparently feeling any moral queasiness or shame. This myth made all that possible. Arafat the obstacle.
A year after his death, the claim that his removal would positively alter the political landscape and give the chance to Israel, the Palestinians and the international community to negotiate a settlement has proven false. And being false, it allowed an even more destructive reality to take hold.
Sharon, without serious protest and much encouragement, has in the past year turned Gaza into the largest prison on earth, moved tens of thousands of settlers into the West Bank, and built an illegal wall across Palestinian land which encircles and starves Palestinian cities and farms. In fragmenting the land, he has further fragmented the Palestinian people who belong to it, both those under occupation and those in enforced exile as refugees. This was his aim all along.
He saw Arafat as an obstacle to this ambition. With Arafat gone, he has indeed managed to achieve it. But he couldn't have done this without the negative myth's magnetic hold in the West. What of the alternative myth of Arafat -- the one that will eventually triumph in the history books? The one that will include just a fraction of the epic stories about him that most Palestinians grew up with?
Arafat, for all his flaws and mistakes, stood for a just peace, based on an historic compromise. He believed in international law, in a two-state solution based on implementing UN Resolution 242, and for a just settlement for refugees, the main victims of this conflict. His legitimacy came from more than the fact that he was democratically elected: He performed an historic purpose in the life of Palestinians, a purpose as yet unfulfilled. By representing his people's general will and collective spirit, he symbolized the absent state's sovereign institutions.
What he represented was the reason he was removed: that Palestinians are one people, whether living under military occupation or in refugee camps. They have a right to self-determination, and they have fought hard for their liberty for generations, which is also a right. For a people to negotiate their way out of an occupation by diplomatic means alone, when the occupier is determined to hold on to their land, has no successful precedent.
On the other hand, examples of successful negotiations once the occupier has accepted he must relinquish another's country are legion. Arafat's own much-used example was French president Charles De Gaulle's 1958 call for la paix des braves with the Algerian armed liberation movement, the FLN. Arafat represented an important reality -- peace will come when freedom is achieved for the Palestinians, and not one minute before.
The negative myth of Arafat prevents any understanding of the conflict or how to resolve it. This is not a conflict healed by providing economic recovery to Palestinians, since their impoverishment is entirely due to an entrenched and permanent military occupation. It is not a holy war against Palestinian terrorists who seek the destruction of the Israeli state, nor excited speculation on the role a new Israeli Labour party leader might play.
This is a battle over the right to call this conflict a conflict between two peoples: one that is oppressed, and the other that is denying them their right to be free. Recovering the true myth of the old man is the key to understanding who the Palestinians are, and how they will achieve their freedom.
Karma Nabulsi is a fellow at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and a former Palestine Liberation Organization representative.
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
On Monday, the day before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) departed on her visit to China, the party released a promotional video titled “Only with peace can we ‘lie flat’” to highlight its desire to have peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, its use of the expression “lie flat” (tang ping, 躺平) drew sarcastic comments, with critics saying it sounded as if the party was “bowing down” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Amid the controversy over the opposition parties blocking proposed defense budgets, Cheng departed for China after receiving an invitation from the CCP, with a meeting with
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is leading a delegation to China through Sunday. She is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing tomorrow. That date coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which marked a cornerstone of Taiwan-US relations. Staging their meeting on this date makes it clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to challenge the US and demonstrate its “authority” over Taiwan. Since the US severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, it has relied on the TRA as a legal basis for all
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
RSS