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Is Arafat impo'tant? By Reuven Koret December 14, 2001 The Israeli cabinet decision to declare Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat "irrelevant" recalls the joke where the southern gentleman comes into his bedroom wearing a top hat and carrying a silver-tipped can-and nothing else. His wife asks what in the world going on. He says he just came back from the urologist and proudly drawls: "the doctor says I'm impo'tant, so I'm gonna act impo'tant." Same with Yasser. Fresh off his weekend performance on Israeli TV, in which he ranted like a madmen and parroted the prompted pro-peace stage-whispers of his handlers, the icon of unending revolution now appears to be a ridiculous parody of his former "freedom-fighter" persona, which never quite replaced his well-earned rep as the godfather of modern terrorism. For years Arafat, lizard-like, managed to fool many, including many well-meaning Jews and Israelis, that he had shed the terrorist skin and had become a peace-loving "freedom fighter" adored in salons and conferences and palaces around the world. Today the pretense of revolutionary hero is long gone. Now he is simply revolting. Still he wears the same olive drab military uniform he wore to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and the rostrum of the UN countless times. He still wears a holster, and only leaves his piece home only on visits to nervous heads of state. Still his keffiyah is arranged just-so to suggest the shape of the whole Palestine he keeps conspiring to liberate. Bottom line: either he can't stop terrorism, or he won't. In either case, the result's the same. The needless killing goes on. The same cynical two-faced charade of peace in English and war in Arabic. Kisses on the cheeks to world leaders. Winks, wrist-slaps and revolving prison doors to the terrorist killers who do his dirty work. By declaring Arafat "irrelevant," Israel struck a blow far more painful than declaring him an enemy (which he is) and a terrorist (which he is). The cabinet decided that he just does not matter any more, and the Israel government will simply ignore him from now on. With intelligence and with force, Israel may now demonstrate what a farce the Arafat-run Palestinian Authority really is: not authentically Palestinian and without real Authority. Ask the intellectuals and professionals of Gaza or Ramallah off the record: They'll tell you Arafat's regime is run by a small gang of outsiders who never really left the villas of Tunis, and rode in on the coat-tails of the foreign cash that accompanied Oslo to import a corrupt gangsterdom of bribery and deceit and intimidation. The rank and file Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank suffer from their pocket-lining and are too frightened to say a word, less they feel the wrath of one of Arafat's sixteen security agencies, each of which reports to him alone. Ask the refugees in Lebanon or Jordan or Egypt or Syria, or the West Bank and Gaza. Have they benefited one iota from Arafat's insistence on resettling them inside Israel rather than enlisting them to build a nation within the borders of the Palestinian Authority? Are they one bit closer to a viable homeland? Where is the preparation of his people for painful compromise with an adversary? Where is the vision of a better, more just society? Where is the call to come to terms once and for all with the Jewish children of Abraham? Where is the Palestinian peace movement? The only thing the Palestinian people got from Arafat, when all was said and done, was a message of hatred and vengeance. They were indoctrinated to believe that the destruction of the Zionist entity was just around the corner. Their children were fed lies and taught to despise Jews, trained to kill them and blow them up. And they, and their older brothers, listened and acted accordingly. He never announced to his people that the time had come to accept a Jewish state as a neighbor and peace partner, even as Israeli leaders came to accept the prospect of an adjacent Palestinian state. It has been said that the Palestinian leadership never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. But "the leadership" is just a euphemism for one man: the man who just knows he's so impo'tant. So impo'tant that the rest of his people can drink the sea water that he wishes in every speech on anyone who disagrees with him, especially the Jews. My mother used to tell me a Yiddish story about a funeral where the rabbi asks for someone to say a eulogy. No one answers. "Can't anyone find even one thing good to say about the dear departed Moishe?" he asks in desperation. Silence, followed by fidgeting and shuffling of feet. Finally, a creaky voice croaks: "His brudda was worse!" Now, I don't know Yasser Arafat's real brother, but we know his brothers in arms. Some are definitely "worse." But others are definitely better. There is a new generation of Palestinians that may prove more pragmatic and less programmatically dedicated to the destruction of Israel. I won't mention their names lest I contribute to their demise. It's a Palestinian choice to make. But the next generation has been prevented from growing into leadership by a petty tyrant who, like Freud's patriarch of the primal horde, prevents his prodigal sons from rivaling him by killing or castrating them first. The time has come to recognize that the self-appointed counter-revolutionary President-for-life of Palestine has no clothes. (Now that's a truly revolting image!) The time is past for the old man to spit or get off the pot. He missed his chance to make history. He is passing in the wind, and his people will reap the whirlwind. It is one senseless tragedy for his people, and for ours. The people of Israel have been stuck in place, unable to make the peace we so deeply desire, because this one man, due to his overweening sense of self-importance, has led his nascent nation to a dead end before it had a chance to live: ignoring social and educational and economic improvement, dedicated to a culture of death and destruction and terror. Skilled at one thing: displacing the justified anger at his mismanaged and morally bankrupt regime into unrelenting fury against the Zionist entity. Arafat abuses his power to run diplomatic cover for the hands-on killers while he keeps one hand on the diplomatic tiller and the other in the public till. It just can't go on like this. The man had more than his fair share of chances. He just kept missing the boats. There was the one in Jordan after Black September 1970, and the one from Beirut in the mid-80's, and the one from Tunis in the 90's, the one with Rabin, and Peres, and Barak. His miserable little rudderless rowboat (no, sir, Yasser, the choppers are no longer running) is now sinking under the waves of international exasperation and disgust. The Israeli peace camp is mortified. The Americans are fed up. The Europeans are disinviting him from their gala events. Yet still the proud Chairman preens, in his olive drab and his trademark keffiyah, desperately seeking lips to kiss and cheeks to press, muttering and sputterng to no one in particular, actually, to anyone who will still listen: "They say I'm impo'tant, so I'm gonna act impo'tant." Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
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