The legacy ofthe 'Kethyar' lives on

Nov.11, 2007


The legacy ofthe 'Kethyar' lives on

FOR many around the world, Yasser Arafat might have faded into distant memory, three years after his mysterious death in a Paris hospital. But not so for the Palestinian people and the larger Arab World.
Arafat, fondly called the "Kethyar" (old man), represented, led and symbolised the Palestinian struggle. Despite what critics saw as serious shortcomings in Arafat's dealings with the different factions of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the broader effort for liberating his land, he continues to live in the hearts of his people giving them inspiration to fight on.
Arafat was one of the Palestinian leaders who had realised early on that it would be a folly to militarily challenge US-supported Israel. Accordingly, he tried to play the political game always keeping an eye for an opening towards a negotiated end to Israel's military occupation of Palestinian land.
The 1993 Oslo agreement that the PLO signed with Israel was the opening he found, but the hardline leaders of the Jewish state and the US let him down thereafter. The Oslo accord was never the perfect blueprint for Israeli-Palestinian peace, but Arafat was manoeuvred into accepting it by apprehension that groups like Hamas and others were gaining on his Fatah movement in popularity among the Palestinian constituents. And indeed, the Oslo accord was the only available game in town, and Arafat made the mistake of trusting the US to twist the Israeli arm when it came to crucial points in post-Oslo negotiations. If anything, he found his own arm being twisted into accepting major compromises, but he always retained the hope of that somewhere, sometime, something would give, offering the Palestinians the breakthrough they were seeking.
At the time of Arafat's death on Nov.11, 2004, the Oslo agreement was dumped in the dustbin of history, and his people had resumed their Intifada after having seen Israel steadfastly refusing to accept their legitimate rights as the basis for peace. And, indeed, Hamas was gaining ground.
Arafat himself had fallen "out of favour" with the US and Israel because of his refusal to sign on Israeli-dotted and US-supported lines that would have sealed the fate of the Palestinian struggle far short of realising its goal of independent statehood with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.
Arafat is no less a martyr than any of the tens of thousands of Palestinians who, before and after him sacrificed their lives for the cause of freedom and independent statehood.
Since his death, the struggle for liberation has taken many manifestations, but the cause and goal remain the same. The Palestinian will to continue resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is as strong as ever, and that is the best legacy that the late Palestinian president left behind for his people.