Is Everything Arafat's Fault?

[Violet_Crumble]

by Amira Hass
November 09, 2004
Ha'aretz

The mothers who came to the military court at Salem on Sunday were seated five to six meters away from their sons on the defendants' bench. It was impossible not to hear their shouted conversations. After they informed their sons about who had sent them regards, and about how they have been thinking about them when they prepare the food for Ramadan, they summed up - for themselves, for everyone around, for their sons - "If only Arafat would die already."

It was clear they blame Arafat for "everything:" the arrest of their sons, the expected years of imprisonment for them, the meters of separation that kept them from the touch of their hands, the dozens of shekels they had to pay for the exhausting ride to the distant court and the young military policemen who were hushing them with waggling fingers and "Sh-sh-sh" every few minutes, as if they were toddlers in nursery school. This reminded one of the Palestinian lawyers in the courtroom that, during a lecture he delivered recently in Italy, a group of workers who support the Palestinian struggle for independence came and waved a placard along the lines of "We are all with Yasser Arafat." You can all be with Arafat, he said to them with suppressed rage, but you are wrong in identifying him exclusively with the Palestinian cause.

There are many aspects to the centrality of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in the international, Israeli and Palestinian consciousness as the representative of the Palestinians. This centrality is not only a result of the status he has obtained for himself as father-ruler. It is also the handiwork of people around him - haters and lovers, members of his own people and foreigners. On the one hand, the constant presence of the Palestinian cause on the international agenda is attributed to Arafat; on the other, so are the Palestinian failures, which everyone defines differently, especially since 1990.

The mothers who blamed Arafat for "everything" are part of a current fashion. Not only like former prime minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, but also like Fatah activists, officers in the security apparatus and Palestinian government ministers. Thus, it is convenient not to examine the traditional social ties and the political habits within which Arafat operated. Thus, it is convenient among the Palestinian elite and many activists to shrug off any personal and collective responsibility for what is happening.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=6608

[Forkboy]

1. We'll know after he kicks the bucket

and all the same shit keeps happening.

[bemildred]

2. Yup. nt