"Remember that when Arafat was still regarded as a superterrorist...the Israelis encouraged the Hamas to build mosques and social institutions in Gaza. Hamas and the Israelis had very close relations when the PLO was still in exile in Tunisia. I can remember being in southern Lebanon in 1993 reporting on the Hamas, and one of their militants offered me Shimon Peres' home phone number. That's how close the relations were!"
Robert Fisk, April 2002
In the 1970s and 80s, Israel, like many other governments in the MIddle East, gave support to Islamist groups as a ploy to undermine support for its secular opponent, in Israel's case the PLO of Yasser Arafat. Like every other state in the region who tried this divide and rule gambit, the Jewish state came to rue the decision to give succour to the jihadists. To encourage the growth of Hamas may have seemed like a cunning wheeze at the time, but I'm sure every Israeli bus passenger today would beg to differ.
The death of Arafat raises the question: is this the end for secular Palestinian nationalism? If the answer to this question is yes, then Israel will soon be confronted by a people led, not by some nice, pliant pro-Israeli group, but rather by the holy warriors of Hamas and islamic Jihad. Who, aside from the Islamists themselves, would welcome such a development? Hamas leading the Palestinian people would be bad for Palestine, bad for Israel and bad for the world.
No matter how decietful the Israelis considered Arafat to be, he was at least a secular nationalist. You can negotiate with a secualr nationalist because he seeks fulfillment in this world. But, what is there to say by those who think that religion gives them a right to kill? What can you say to a man who is convinced he is on his way to paradise?
Yet Israel was incapable of making a deal with secular Palestinian nationalism when it had the chance. Contrary to the Likudnik mythology, it was the PLO and not Israel which really wanted peace. Even after the Palestinian mainstream took the incredibly paunful decision to recognise the Jewish state in 1988, the Israeli government went on treating Arafat as a leper for several more years.
When they did finally talk to the PLO, a peace treaty was signed, the Oslo agreement. But it was the Israelis, not the Palestinians, who were the begrudgers when it came to implementation, always acting in the most halting and half-hearted way possible and consistently reneging on treaty obligations. Above all, throughout the so called years of "peace", the number of settlements increased dramatically and Palestinians continued to be killed regualrly by the IDF. In spite of Oslo, the occupation went on.
Seeing all this, the Palestinian people, the "street" as we must for some reason refer to them as, drifted, slowly but perceptibly, towards those Islamist groups which rejected the entire rationale of Oslo. It was at this time, with the bus bombings of the mid-nineties, that Hamas started to bite the hand that had fed it. Hamas' spate of attacks in the run-up to the 1996 Israeli election cost their old phone pal Peres his job as prime minister.
Israel may well live to rue its decision to make "peace" in such bad faith in the nineties. Arafat died without achieving statehood for his people. Now, with the PLO shorn of its legendary leader and only real asset, it's hard to see what there is to stop Hamas from sweeping it aside. If this does happen, it could be disastrous, not just for the region, but for the entire world.
It is often said that the conflict in Palestine is a running sore between the West and the Islamic world. This is very true. Msulim populations thousands of miles from the West Bank and Gaza seethe at the daily injustice of Israeli occupation. We are all less safe as a result. But think how much worse it could become if the new leader of the Palestinians defines his people's struggle, not in terms of ending the Israeli occupation, but rather of driving the Jews into the sea. Such a scenario would make the conflict immeasurably more intractable and even more poisonous to relations between the Islamic world and the West.
Say what you like about Arafat, and I am very far from an adoring fan of his, but at least he spoke the language of anti-colonialism not of sectarianism. It was Arafat who wore a badge on his chest which featured the Israeli flag, Arafat who visited Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam, Arafat who liked to reminsce about his youth playing with Jewish children in Jerusalem.
"Ah yes", his many critics say, "but these were just gestures, not real". But this misses the point entirely. In any divided society gestures are real. The messages they send are very important. By his conciliatory acts Arafat told the Israelis (and his own people) "I oppose you, but I don't hate you." Will the next Palestinian leader wish to send such a message? I fear not.
The obituaries for Yasser Arafat have come too soon. To borrow a famous phrase, it is "too early to tell" if Abu Amar was a good leader or not. The verdict can not be given now, as his widow still wears black. Rather it will come when his nine year old daughter is a woman. Arafat can only be judged against his successor.
Will the next Palestinian leader be better than Arafat? Will he be better for the Palestinians, for the Israelis, for all of us?