David McReynolds on the Death of Yasser Arafat

One of the questions some of us have always had is just how Arafat, who died today in Paris, managed to keep his beard an untidy stubble. Usually beards, of which I am a possessor, tend to grow by themselves and need trimming. Arafat's always looked as if he simply hadn't shaved for a week. Perhaps the obits can tell us..

It was a good many years ago now, when I shook Arafat's hand. Arafat had spoken that day at the United Nations, and there was a reception that evening. The Jewish Defense League had issued a public warning that Arafat would not leave the city alive. My friend Allan Solomonow, then living in New York, had an invitation to the UN reception, and asked if I wanted to go along. It was the threat of his assassination which prompted me to tell Allan, "sure, count me in"..

The security wasn't that heavy. I don't think my Swiss army knife - which no longer can enter any government building - was even noticed. I saw one of the men from New York City's "secret police" (a kind of red squad which I assume still exists - it was called BOSSI - Bureau of Special Services). He was stationed not far from Arafat, and we nodded as we went down the line. It was a very perfunctory handshake - it was a long line. It seemed to me, considering the death threats, and the ease Allan and I had of entering the UN, that an assassination wouldn't have been that hard to pull off..

But then, Arafat was an old warrior, a resistance fighter, a terrorist (something he had in common with a number of those who founded the State of Israel, including two of its Prime Ministers), so assassination was not a new risk for him..

As we sum up his life - and that is certainly not my job - there is a sense of tragedy that the old man who had fought so long for his people, who had come to embody them, died in Paris and will not be buried in his beloved East Jerusalem. That Sharon and Bush declared him "irrelevant" and would not deal with him was a foolish denial of the reality that, in life, and in death, Arafat was a crucial figure in the peace process. The security Sharon hopes to achieve may be harder now. The quarrel between Arafat and Sharon was certainly titanic. The reality is that much as supporters on one side of the other might detest one (or both!) of the men, they could - perhaps - have made peace if the will had been there..

Arafat certainly wanted too much, I concede that. I doubt the Palestinians can get now what was once within reach. But Sharon also wanted and wants too much. Together these old warriors might have struck a deal, but both had dreams that blinded them to the limits within which they operate. Sharon now largely abandoned by his one-time allies, as he seeks a major step out of Gaza, and Arafat gone..

The death announced today shames the treatment Sharon heaped on Arafat in the past three years. (For Bush I have such profound contempt I won't even comment on his role). To reduce the man who was the elected leader of his people to the indignity of living in rubble, unable to leave, was humiliating to him, certainly, but it was so petty that it shames and diminishes Sharon. It was a petty conflict which Sharon lost..

For my part, while I wish as a pacifist, a believer in the Gandhian method of change, that Arafat had chosen the path of nonviolence, I also believe, as Gandhi pointed out, that resistance is better than submission, even when that resistance is violent. Of the two men, Arafat and Sharon, one is more powerful by far, and the other greater than the Israelis can understand. I salute one who struggled for the liberation of his people.

A HREF="mailto:david.mcr@earthlink.net">David McReynolds
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