Human
Shield
By Uri Avnery
14 October, 2003
Gush Shalom
We
were sitting in the courtyard of Arafat's Mukat'ah (compound); a group
of Israeli peace activists and Palestinian friends, senior Palestinian
Authority officials. A pleasant mild wind was blowing after a hot day.
We were chatting about the situation (what else?) and the latest gossip
about the Palestinian leadership. From time to time a senior Palestinian
joined us, before going up to see the President, or coming back from
him.
The tall figure
of Jibril Rajoub emerged from between the sand sacks that defend the
entrance of the building. He had seen Arafat and joined our group for
a few minutes. "We have heard that the Israeli cabinet is about
to meet," he announced darkly.
We all understood
the meaning of that. A meeting of the cabinet - what could that mean?
What if not an attack on the Mukata'ah?
Rajoub entered his
black car and sped off on his business. We exchanged some words about
the possibility of an attack - and then, suddenly, all the lights in
the compound went off. A dead silence ensued. From afar we heard the
approaching drone of an airplane.
Nobody said anything.
In the brain a thought was passing: "So that's it!"
And then the light
went on, as suddenly as they had gone turned off. The plane in the air
passed us and flew on in the direction of Amman. We continued to talk
as if nothing had happened.
Earlier on that
day, the atmosphere had become tense for a different reason. At noon,
one of the volunteers came back to the compound and recounted that,
while he was sitting in a coffee shop, shouts were heard: "The
Israelis are coming!" The owner of the shop urged his guests to
run away, even without paying. Soon after, two army jeeps appeared.
From afar, the sirens of ambulances could be heard. The two jeeps went
on to the narrow street in front of the Muhata'ah, where they went back
and forth. Inside, the rumor spread quickly. It looked like a reconnaissance
patrol before the attack. The jeeps went off to Ramallah's central square.
The children of the neighborhood threw stones at them. I matter of routine.
Calm returned.
The moment we heard about the shocking atrocity in Haifa, on Saturday
afternoon, we understood that we had to hurry to the Mukata'ah. Within
an hour, a small group of ten Israeli peace-activists was organized.
Somehow we succeeded in entering Ramallah, which was surrounded and
cut off by the Israeli army. With us were also some 30 international
peace activists from many countries.
If we had more time,
the group might have been larger. But it was the Jewish holiday season,
many of potential participants were abroad, others could not join on
such short notice. But for us, time was of the essence.
It was clear that
Ariel Sharon would try to exploit the outrage of the Jihad, in which
whole families were killed, in order to realize his dream of many years:
to kill Yasser Arafat. That was so obvious that a question arose automatically:
Was this, perhaps, the real aim of the initiators to start with?
The suicide bomber
was a young female lawyer, who wanted to take personal revenge: both
her brother and her fiance were killed by the Israeli army. In the Palestinian
territories there are now thousands of such people, men and women, and
each of them a ticking bomb. They do not need any political reason.
An Israeli who orders the killing of Palestinians, men, women and children,
must know that this may well be the result.
But the Islamic
Jihad organization has taken responsibility for the action. Thereby
the personal vendetta became a political act. A political act has political
aims. And the aim could only be connected to the fact that - as all
the world knows - Sharon is ready to kill Arafat at any minute. The
Israeli government has already officially decided to "remove"
Arafat. (Abroad, this word has been falsified into "expel").
Only the Americans are preventing this, for the time being. But after
a major outrage the American red light might change into green, or at
least into yellow. For Sharon, the slightest yellowish flicker is enough
to execute his plan.
A Palestinian organization
that sends a suicide bomber in such circumstances knows that its action
will not only kill and wound dozens of Israelis, women, man and children,
but may also cause the death of the Palestinian leader. It seems that
the Jihad - or somebody within the Jihad - desires this. He hopes that
the killing of Arafat will cause the collapse of the Palestinian Authority,
general anarchy throughout the country, the creation of hundreds of
terrorist cells in the Palestinian territories and the raise of Jihad's
prestige sky high.
As it sometimes
happens in history, the interests of Jihad are meeting the interests
of Sharon. In order to realize his policy - the removal of the Palestinian
Authority, the enlargement of the settlements all over the country and
the domination of Israel over all the Palestinian territories - he need
an atmosphere of anarchy and an ever-widening cycle of bloodshed. Arafat
is an obstacle in his way, and therefore he wants to "remove"
him - to the next world.
Exactly for this
reason, a consistent Israeli peace movement worth its name must do everything
to prevent this act. The killing of Arafat would be a historical disaster
for the State of Israel, because it would mean the elimination of any
chance for peace for generations to come and the increase of bloodshed
to dimension unknown until now.
Therefore we decided
to prevent this disaster with the paltry resources at our disposal.
The reception at the Mukata'ah was tumultuous. Dozens of TV teams from
all over the world, and especially from the Arab world, were crowded
in the courtyard and pounced on us. Questions were showered on us from
all sides and in several languages.
One question turned
up again and again: "Do you believe that you can stop an attack
by Sharon?"
We all answered
candidly that we don't know. We cannot stop tanks, warplanes, trained
soldiers or disabling gas. But we hope that the very knowledge that
in the compound there is a group of Israelis, as well as internationals,
may constitute one more factor that will be put on the scales when Sharon
and his generals make the decision. If the arguments for and again outweigh
each other, this factor may prove decisive.
(The next day, it
was mentioned in the media that one of the participants in the "security
consultation" did indeed raise this point.)
The hour was already late and we were shown our accommodations. In a
large hall that has been restored after the destruction, mattresses
were put along the walls, each one with a thick blanket. Next to the
hall, new and reasonable toilets were built. At one side of the hall
were tables with boxes of coffee and tea, bottles of light drinks, pitta
bread, hard cheese and conserves.
One of Arafat's
assistants, Dr. Sami Mussalam, informed us that the Ra'is was sick and
had stayed today in bed, but would receive us tomorrow morning. In the
meantime, he saw to all our needs.
After the hours
of organization and traveling, we were quite hungry and tired. We tried
to get the news over Israel radio and chose mattresses for ourselves.
There were different opinions about what was the best place in case
of bombing from the air, as opposed to storming by soldiers. The toilets?
The entrances? All of us slept in his clothes. Most did not even take
off their shoes. For all events, the lights were not put out altogether.
It was possible
to sleep only in fits. All through the night the mobile telephones did
not stop ringing. People from America, Europe, South Africa and Asia
kept asking for interviews. We had, so it seemed, become objects of
international curiosity.
At six o'clock in the morning I was woken up by the ringing of the mobile
phone. I ran outside, so as not to disturb the dozens of sleeping people.
A young lady from one of the morning talk shows wanted to know if I
was ready to give an interview at seven o'clock.
Generally I would
not have been overjoyed by this, but this time I was in a good mood.
A whole night had passed without anything terrible happening.
I remained outside.
The courtyard was empty, except for a few soldiers on duty. I took a
chair and sat in a corner.
Above me, in the
gentle breeze, hundreds of small Palestinian flags were waving on strings,
in addition to the larger flags in the roof. (Once they were called
"PLO flags", and anyone who had one in his possession was
liable to go to prison for three years.) On the walls that surround
the courtyard on three sides (two buildings left standing and the famous
bridge between them) were colorful posters left over from the mass solidarity
demonstration after the "removal" decision of the Sharon government.
"Our soul,
all our soul, to the commander and symbol, brother Abu Amar" said
one of them. Abu Amar is Arafat's nom de guerre. Another, by the Ministry
for Refugee Affairs, said: "For brother Arafat, the symbol of our
struggle, the support of the tents of the Palestinian people".
On one of the posters where the pictures of the Dome of the Rock and
the Church of the Sepulcher. On all of the posters, Arafat with his
famous keffiye (checkered headdress). The golden Dome of the Rock and
the picture of Arafat are the two symbols of the Palestinian struggle,
apart from the flag. The word "symbol" (Rams, in Arabic) appeared
on all the posters without exception.
On one of the wall
was hanging a two-floors high cloth with hundreds of little handprints
in the Palestinian colors - red, green and black on a white background,
a present from the children of a refugee camp school.
That morning, all
of this looked almost gay. The Mukata'ah was silent, the few guards
seemed bored. Every soldier passing me said politely "Sabah al-Kheir"
(good morning, in Arabic), and some even said "Boker Tov"
(same in Hebrew). Perfect tranquility - but a deceptive one. The knowledge
that all this could be shattered in a moment, with the gay scene turning
into a scene of blood and death, was lingering in the back of the mind.
At about 11 o'clock, we were told that the Ra'is had got up from his
sickbed and was ready to receive the Israeli human shield members in
the long meeting room.
Since then I have
been asked dozens of times: How does he look? Well, he looked like somebody
weakened after an attack of the flu: paler and thinner. It seemed to
me that it would have been better for him to stay in bed for another
day or two. But he had obviously compelled himself to get up.
He received us,
the Israeli peace activists, with much feeling, smiling broadly, with
much shaking of hands and hugging. The fact that in such an emergency
men and women from Israel had come to constitute a "human shield"
had made a deep impression. He spoke about this repeatedly.
About a dozen TV
teams were allowed into the room and started to record the meeting.
Abu-Ala (Ahmad Kurei) also came. Arafat put him between me and himself
and delivered a very strong condemnation of Saturday's suicide bombing.
The Emergency Government of Brother Abu-Ala, he said, would take the
strongest possible steps to put an end to such outrages.
I noticed the Israeli
flag on his breast. A month ago, during another visit, I saw that he
was wearing on the flap of the breast-pocket of his uniform jacket several
emblems of crossed flags: Palestine-Canada, Palestine-Italy and so on.
I removed from my shirt the Gush Shalom emblem - the crossed flags of
Israel and Palestine - and put it in front of him. He picked it up at
once and put it on, above the others.
I was surprised
that he had left it on and wore it on that day, too. (Two days later,
at the swearing-in of the Abu-Ala government, he wore this Israeli flag
on his chest.)
After the meeting, Arafat invited us and the international volunteers
to lunch in the hall above our sleeping quarters. On the long tables
were the traditional dishes: mutton on rice, Sinia (hacked meat in Tehina),
baked chicken parts. At the end, real Kenafeh from Nablus, considered
the best in the world, was served. (Kenafeh is an Arab sweet with cheese).
Rachel and I were
placed on the two sides of Arafat. Generally he eats very little and
offers with his hands choice morsels of meat or vegetables to honored
guests. This time he sipped only chicken soup specially prepared for
him. He told Rachel, my wife, that he sticks to a strict diet of chicken
soup, which is the best after the attack of viral flu that had affected
the stomach.
Among the guest
at the Mukata'ah that day was also an Italian choir. Before and after
lunch they rendered the songs of the Italian partisans who had fought
against the Fascist regime and the Germans. Emotions in the room ran
high when everybody, including Arafat, held raised hands and joined
in the singing. When they had finished, one of the internationals, a
young Japanese, rose and sang a beautiful Japanese peace song. It appeared
that Naoto, whose exact age I could not guess, has studied sociology
but decided to become a singer. He is a perfect mime, and his good spirits
and innocent good-heartedness made him the darling of all the group.
In the end, a group
photo was taken, and all Israelis and internationals grouped themselves
around Arafat. It was hard to believe that this was no birthday party,
but a meeting of people who were risking their lives for peace.
Yom Kippur passed quietly. We saw the parade of Palestinian personalities
that came and went, while the task of forming the government was progressing
slowly. It was obvious that Arafat's and Abu-Ala's decision to form
a narrow Emergency Government, consisting of only eight members (apart
from the Prime Minister) had disappointed many central functionaries
who remained outside. All the personalities approached and greeted us
warmly.
Arafat's close assistant,
Nabil Abu-Rudeina, was asked by journalists how Palestinians could rely
on the United States, the Arab countries, Europe or the United Nations.
His answer: "We rely first of all on our Israeli friends."
During all of the
day, journalists called me from abroad (and from Israel, too, but I
am not going to tell on those who called me on the holy Yom Kippur)
and asked about the state of Arafat's health. It seemed that a lot of
rumors, some of them quite crazy, were spread outside. Was it true that
Arafat had been poisoned by Israel? I answered that Arafat himself had
not mentioned this during lunch.
At a corner of the
courtyard an ambulance is parked permanently (the same was the practice
in Israel during the days of Begin.) In the evening, another ambulance
came in. A lone men got down and approached the building in unhurried
steps. I was told later that this was a friend of the resident doctor
who lives in the Mukata'ah and had come to visit him. After some time
he came out, went to his ambulance, put on the flashing red light and
drove off.
Within an hour I
got frantic calls from Tel-Aviv. Was it true that Arafat had suffered
a heart attack? Was it true that he had been sped to hospital? I could
answer with certainty that this was untrue. Afterwards the rumor spread
that he had suffered a light heart attack a few days before. I am not
a doctor, but if to judge by impressions, this rumor seems to me untrue.
On the morrow of Yom Kippur, the Abu-Ala government was sworn in. We,
the members of the Israeli group, stood in the first line, in the part
of the hall reserved for the media who were represented massively. We
wore the large sticker of the Gush, also consisting of the flags of
Israel and Palestine.
The ceremony started
late because of last minute problems (Palestinians, like Israelis, cannot
do anything without last minute problems). Immediately after the ceremony
was over, Arafat saw us, went directed up to us and hugged the Israeli
activists before the massed cameras of the world.
That was a personal
gesture, but a political one, too. The Palestinian leader wanted to
show the world that a settlement with Israel is the first item on the
agenda of the new government.
For us it clear
that with the setting up of the government, the imminent danger to the
life of Arafat had - for the time being - passed, together with the
terrible results his assassination would entail. After three days and
nights we went home, ready to go there again if the need will arise,
in order to do everything possible to prevent an act that would be a
disaster for Israel. For us, that is the most important patriotic thing
we can do.