Yasser Arafat's Unfinished Saga

The death of Yasser Arafat in a way brings to an end that era of decolonization which was led by charismatic, revolutionary leaders, fighting for a national homeland as part of the global struggle for equality, justice, freedom and above all self determination.

The mid twentieth century witnessed the rise of charismatic nativism personified in leaders such as Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and Yasser Arafat in Palestine. These leaders captured the imagination of their people who yearned for freedom and dignity and also captured the media attention of the West which, while often aligned against them, remained mesmerized by their politics, their rhetoric, and their sacrifice for their cause.

Arafat was a man of inherent contradictions. He won the highest honor that our planet bestows on people for working towards peace [The Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994], but he also is in many ways the man who internationalized, even glamorized terrorism, by using it to put the Palestinian cause on the global agenda. Yasser Arafat spent the better part of his life fighting for freedom for his people, but when he had the opportunity to govern them as the first President of the Palestinian Authority he proved to be a dictator rather than a democrat.

In his struggle for a Palestinian homeland Arafat enjoyed spectacular success as well as spectacular failures.

Arafat's success lies in the fact that the Palestinian state is not only high on the global agenda but is now a foregone conclusion. What remains to be determined is the boundaries of this state. As the leader of the movement for nearly half a century, he founded the Fatah organization in 1958 and became the chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1969. Since then Arafat has managed to keep the Arab world and to some extent the Muslim world focused on the Palestinians' plight and aspirations. It would not be a stretch to claim that for the Arab world today there is no bigger cause than the Palestinian cause.

Muslim and Christian Arabs, Islamist and secular Muslim Arabs may disagree on the role of Islam in their society, but there is near universal consensus on the right of the Palestinians to have a homeland in Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital. Arafat's public diplomacy in the Arab world, assisted by the political logic of the Arab nations, is responsible for this passion for Palestine that rages in Arab hearts today.

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