Palestinians rallying around Arafat
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) – At a barber shop where men come for a trim during a break in the Israeli curfew, President Bush’s demand for a Palestinian leader other than Yasser Arafat strikes a chord – of anger and stubborn resistance. “The people only want Arafat – Arafat or nobody,” unemployed laborer Mohammed Yousef Hiraimi, 33, says to nods of agreement among the half-dozen men at the shop.
The mood in this store, its front plastered with posters of young “martyrs” who died challenging Israel’s soldiers or killing its citizens, is confirmed by politicians and analysts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – Palestinians, at least for now, are digging in against what they view as unacceptable U.S. interference.
Even Arafat’s critics – and there are many – say they would rather keep him in power than buckle to Bush’s demand that he be replaced with a leadership “not compromised by terror.”
If any such alternative leadership exists, it has yet to make its existence publicly known.
Arafat’s political weakness is apparent: Palestinians gave him an approval rating of only 35 percent in May, and his control of militants or even his own lieutenants is questionable. Last week, it took Arafat two days of wrangling to fire an unwilling security chief.
Yet despite accusations that his Palestinian Authority is ineffectual and corrupt, Arafat at 73 is still revered by many as a guerrilla hero who for almost four decades kept the Palestinian cause on the world’s agenda.
Although Palestinians speak relatively openly of their frustrations with their leadership, many are reluctant to directly criticize Arafat.
Palestinian analysts say the new rallying around Arafat is genuine, and doubt any strong competition will emerge in January elections, lest it be seen as divisive at a time when Palestinians are under siege. Arafat is likely to dismiss more aides and shepherd new faces into the legislature. But whether that will satisfy the U.S. administration isn’t clear.
“His opponents stand alongside him because they feel that defending him is defending the national dignity,” said Ali Jarbawi, a political scientist at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah.
A poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, a Palestinian research group, showed only 47.5 percent of Palestinians said they expected Arafat to be re-elected. Arafat was identified by 25 percent as the personality they trusted most, while 24.5 percent said they don’t trust anyone. The margin of error was 3 percentage points.
But that was before Bush’s speech. Palestinians expect the next polls to show a strengthened Arafat.
Jad Isaac, director-general of the Applied Research Institute in Bethlehem, said Bush either grossly misread the Palestinian mood or is not genuinely interested in peace. Either way, he says, Bush’s call has set back prospects for change.
Ordinary Palestinians, he said, want “a modern Palestinian state where there are elements of rule of law, transparency, good governance, accountability…” With Arafat’s administration, he said, “Regrettably this is not the case.”
Palestinian officials say there may not even be an election as long as Israeli forces remain in Palestinian areas. And a mid-January vote gives Arafat’s critics too little time to field candidates without seeming disloyal to the national cause, Isaac said.
“If the Americans would not have interfered, there would have been a real chance,” he said.
Perhaps the most popular Palestinian political figure today is Marwan Barghouti, a senior member of Arafat’s Fatah organization. He is jailed by Israel as a terrorism suspect.
Jibril Rajoub, ousted last week as West Bank security chief, is prominent but has pledged loyalty to Arafat.
Gaza police chief Ghazi Jibali is said to be considering running for office, but does not have broad support and is wanted by Israel for allegedly planning attacks.
The Islamic extremist group Hamas is well organized and its suicide bombings tend to pick up street support at times of heightened confrontation with Israel. Though Hamas has not ruled out running in elections, it is not expected to do so.
The secular camp is divided, too. But Abdel Alim Younis Dana, a Hebron-area leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said his group probably would work with Arafat’s Fatah despite their differences, simply for the sake of projecting unity.
“Maybe Arafat is a dictator and has his junta around him, but it is not for the Americans to get rid of him. Maybe we will get rid of him ourselves in a couple of years,” he said.
Only one candidate has announced himself in public. Political scientist Abdel Sattar Qassem, 53, says he will focus on “the corruption and mismanagement and looting public money, cronyism” in the Palestinian Authority. But he is widely dismissed by Palestinians as not being a serious option.
Besides, Qassem backs bombing and shooting attacks on Israeli civilians – not the sort of Arafat successor Bush has in mind.