Missing Arafat
Uri Avnery
Interviewed
By Uri Avnery & Ari Shavit
23 November, 2004
Ha'aretz
Uri Avnery has accomplished quite a lot
in his 81 years. He fought for the pre-state underground group Lehi,
then in the War of Independence in the "Samson's Foxes" unit,
he wrote the most important real-time books about that war ("In
the Fields of the Philistines" and "The Other Side of the
Coin"), he was the editor of the weekly magazine that changed the
face of Israeli journalism (Ha'olam Hazeh), he established the political
movement that shaped the face of the Israeli left ("Ha'olam Hazeh
- Koah Hadash"), he was one of the leading spokesmen of Arab-Israeli
culture. However, above all, Uri Avnery performed one crucial political
act: He brought Yasser Arafat into our lives.
In 1974, Avnery
became the first Israeli to start conducting talks with Arafat's representatives.
In 1982, he was the first Israeli to meet with and interview Arafat.
In 1994, he sat at Arafat's side when the Palestinian leader returned
to the Gaza Strip. For 30 years, Avnery was the most enthusiastic espouser
of the Arafatist political option. Even when others on the left despaired
of the chairman and abandoned him, Avnery continued to make pilgrimage
to the Muqata, Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah. Even during the most
trying times he acted as Arafat's human shield and advocate. Loyally,
tenaciously, at risk to his life, the radical Israeli journalist fought
the battle of the leader of the Palestinian national movement.
Avnery is an emphatically
unemotional person. Rational, cool, precise. Always carefully turned
out, always elegant, always that lingering German accent. But on Tuesday
night, when the Palestinian leadership admitted the rais [head] was
dying, the drama of Arafat's death suddenly gripped him. In the living
room of his Tel Aviv home, Avnery looked sadder and more vulnerable
than ever. At times it seemed that true human grief was welling up in
his metallic-blue eyes.
One great mistake
Uri Avnery, as someone
who was close to Arafat, don't you feel that there is something humiliating
about the way death came to him?
Avnery: "Regrettably,
Suha [Arafat's wife] did not meet the test of history. She was Arafat's
great mistake. He married her in a moment of weakness, when he suddenly,
after all, wanted to be a family man. But that desire passed very quickly
in the light of the opposition the marriage aroused. People couldn't
understand why the man who was married to the revolution suddenly got
married. And not to a Muslim Arab woman, but to a Christian. To a modern
woman, an outsider, a blonde. He realized he had to keep his distance
from her and she remained bitter. The result was the end we have just
seen, which was not appropriate and which definitely hurts me. Very
much so. Arafat deserves something different. But in a few weeks all
this will be forgotten; what will remain is a death that carries huge
symbolic value.
"In the final
analysis, what will enter Palestinian history is that the person who
led them for almost 50 years died abroad. Like most of the Palestinian
people. And what will be enshrined in the Palestinian and Arab national
myth is that the leader of the liberation movement died on the brink
of Palestinian independence, but without entering it. That will take
on symbolic significance that will intensify from year to year, like
the stature of Arafat himself."
What you are saying,
then, is that Arafat will be remembered as the Palestinian Moses, nothing
less.
"There is a
great similarity to the death of Moses, who removed a people from slavery
and led its march to freedom for 40 years, almost exactly like Arafat.
There is also a similarity in the fact that Arafat too reached the gate
of the Promised Land, saw it from afar but did not enter it. I have
been thinking about that a great deal in the past few days. The symbolism
here is very great, and because of it the dead Arafat will be even stronger
than the living Arafat."
Do you really believe
that Arafat was a giant historic leader?
"A giant. Yasser
Arafat will be remembered as one of the greatest leaders of the second
half of the 20th century. He is sometimes compared to Nelson Mandela.
But Arafat's task was a thousand times more difficult than that of Mandela,
who spent 28 years in prison and so remained totally untainted by external
struggles and internal struggles and of any association with terrorism.
And in the end, he received an existing state. One day he was the leader
of a liberation movement, the next day he was president.
"Arafat, in
contrast, received a widely scattered refugee people, all of whom were
living under Arab dictatorships. A nation whose leadership was pursued
by the secret services of half a dozen countries, including Israel.
As a result, Arafat was compelled to lie, sometimes to this Arab leader,
sometimes to that one. He had to resort to ambivalence and needed the
ability to maneuver. That ability is perhaps one of his most prominent
qualities.
"Arafat also
had to create a state ex nihilo. To establish a state where there was
no infrastructure, no economy, no instruments of government. And he
had to bridge the tensions between the veteran leadership from Tunisia
and the young local leadership. And between Christians and Muslims.
Between woman and men. Between hamulas [clans]. Between refugees and
residents of the territories. He had to hold that whole package together,
almost on his own, under unbelievable conditions. And he succeeded.
He also succeeded in not giving in. He stood up to Clinton and [former
Israeli prime minister Ehud] Barak and did not capitulate. So there
is no doubt in my mind that he will become one of the major heroes of
Arab history. He will enter the pantheon of symbolic Arab heroes, like
the Caliph Omar and like Salah a-Din."
Do you really think
so - when, after all, he was only the leader of a quite problematic
national movement of a small Arab nation?
"That small
nation became the symbol of the entire Arab world. Because the Arab
world today is in a humiliated state. Its whole thrust is against Western
expansion. When an 18-year-old in Cairo or Riyadh or Damascus looks
around today for a figure to cling to, he sees only Arafat. Every Arab
who feels the humiliation of the Arab nation identifies with Arafat
as a person who was not vanquished. As a person with courage and who,
contrary to all the vilifications, remains untainted. In all these senses
Arafat is completely different from all the other leaders in the region.
He towers above the ugly and wretched images of people like Mubarak,
Abdullah or Assad. In fact, the only figure that competes with the image
of Arafat is Osama bin Laden. And the two of them represent polarities
in the Arab and Muslim world.
"Arafat was
religious, yes, but his leadership was secular. He represented an essentially
secular national movement. He represented Arab nationalism in a European
format. Bin Laden, in contrast, represents anti-national Islamic fundamentalism
which rejects Arab nationalism just as Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] Judaism
rejects Israeli nationalism. Therefore, both Israel and the United States
made a terrible mistake by not entering into an alliance with Arafat.
Because henceforth all the Arab revolutions will be fundamentalist in
character, whereas Arafat was the last chance for the victory of Arab
nationalism in the Western format. He was the last barrier to the extremist
Islamic forces."
I'm not sure I follow
that - could you elaborate?
"The greatest
danger facing Israel is the danger of Salah a-Din: of a counter-Crusade
in which the Arab world unites under the Islamic banner. That is a true
existential danger for Israel. Arafat was the total opposite of that,
both in the small Palestinian arena and as a symbol for the entire Arab
world. So, as the Egyptian thinker Mohammed Sid Ahmed said, if Arafat
didn't exist, Israel would have had to invent him. Arafat was a natural
partner to ensure Israel's future. But we behaved foolishly. We broke
him. We didn't understand that he was a critical element in the wall
against fundamentalism. We didn't understand that Arafat was the only
counter-pole to bin Laden, his associates and his successors."
Are you arguing,
then, that the anti-Arafat policy adopted by Prime Minister Sharon and
President Bush was calamitous?
"Sharon is
an ignorant man and so is Bush. That is the connection between them.
They are both appallingly primitive people who are incapable of grasping
broad historical contexts. The joint effort by the two of them to break
Arafat represents historical shortsightedness of a-historic people.
People who do not understand history and do not live history. Both of
them have effectively left the field to bin Laden. By Bush's destruction
of Iraq and by the fact that the two of them broke Arafat, they have
inflicted a disaster on both America and Israel. But America will be
able to cope. Even if the result is the destruction of another hundred
towers and the transformation of the United States into a fascist dictatorship,
America will ultimately recover and be healed. For Israel, though, this
is an existential problem. In breaking Arafat we made a historic mistake,
which we will probably not be able to rectify."
Gentle and warm
Let's leave the
judgment of history for a bit. You met Arafat dozens of times and spent
hundreds of hours with him. What sort of person was he?
"Arafat is
always a surprise for everyone who meets him for the first time. How
so? In that the gap between his television image and reality is astonishing.
First of all, the beard. On television it always looks like it's a two-day
growth. But in reality the beard is groomed, black and white, part pepper
and part salt. Then the eyes. On television they look a bit mad, a bit
fanatic. In reality, though, they are exactly the opposite: very gentle,
even feminine.
"All in all,
Arafat is a very gentle person. His hands are gentle, his body language
is gentle. And he is a very warm person. Very much so. Filled with empathy.
Because of that he has an incredible capacity to forge personal contact.
He is direct, informal, emotional. He is not a person of abstract ideas
but of feelings; not analytical but intuitive. Much of his dialogue
takes place not in words but in gestures. He is very fond of gestures.
"He had a phenomenal
memory and he was an incredibly quick study. He could grasp a situation
in a thousandth of a second. At the same time, he was definitely not
an intellectual person. I don't think he read books. I don't think he
read at all. He is one of those leaders for whom synopses are prepared.
But he had a tendency to go into great detail. And he had the ability
to make bold decisions with lightning speed. Because of those two traits
he found it difficult to delegate powers. He was always very centralistic.
He kept his cards close to the chest. When you saw him sitting with
Abu Mazen and Abu Ala, they were like small children in comparison.
He was the one who decided. He alone decided. That's why I think he
is irreplaceable. There is no one else in the Palestinian arena who
is capable of making decisions as he did.
"He had a sense
of humor. He liked to joke. Sometimes he joked at the expense of his
aides. But he wasn't pretentious and he wasn't remote. He let people
interrupt him and correct him. The atmosphere he created was that of
a Hasidic leader in his court.
"In the last
analysis, I think his most outstanding trait was his total identification
with his role. He himself, Arafat, was the Palestinian war of liberation.
Hence the feeling that he cannot be replaced. That only he could do
it. And there was also the feeling of personal providence when he miraculously
survived the crash-landing of his plane in the Libyan desert. Like Arik
Sharon, Arafat was totally convinced he held the fate of his people
in his hands. But unlike Sharon, who is the most secular of the secular,
in Arafat that sense always had a religious dimension. In that sense
he truly was a believing Muslim."
Were the two of
you genuinely close?
"There was
complete mutual trust. I will give you one example. When we met in Tunis,
he did not cover his head. I have a photograph in which he is seen without
a head covering, peeling an orange for me. And doing it meticulously,
totally focused on that. But without the kaffiyeh, and looking very
much like his brother. Arafat know I would not publish that photo. He
knew that even though I was a journalist I would never publish anything
that should not be published."
Historic concessions
Is Arafat's death
natural or did Israel have a part in it?
"Conspiracy
theories always spring up in situations like this. I don't have a conspiratorial
mind, but sometimes conspiracy theories turn out to be right. What I
can say in the way of personal testimony is that when I saw him, just
three weeks before he took sick, he was healthy. More healthy than I
had seen him in the past.
"One thing
is certain: Israel is to blame for holding him for two and a half years
in two or three rooms without air and without sun. Even a convict who
is condemned to death has the right to an hour's walk in the prison
yard every day. Arafat, though, did not leave the Muqata building for
years. Israel is responsible for that. It is responsible for not allowing
a 75-year-old person to walk at all for a long time."
Did Sharon want
to kill him?
"Without the
slightest doubt."
Do you have suspicions?
When a person has
a sudden, inexplicable collapse in these conditions, suspicion is automatic.
But I have no proof one way or the other. I can only tell you that Arafat
was convinced Sharon wanted to kill him. He talked a lot about that."
So in the end General
Sharon vanquished General Arafat after all?
"I don't think
so. The dead Arafat vanquishes the living Sharon."
What do you mean?
"Two things.
Twenty years after Sharon is gathered unto his forefathers, no one will
remember him. In contrast, Arafat will be remembered even in another
hundred years and five hundred years. Maybe even a thousand years. Every
Arab remembers Salah a-Din eight hundred years after his death. They
will remember Arafat, too.
"But there
is something else, too, more immediate. The heritage that Arafat is
leaving after him will prevent the Palestinian people from capitulating
to Sharon's plan. It is precisely by his death that Arafat is consolidating
the boundary of the Palestinian concessions. Now no Palestinian leader
will dare to cross that boundary. The dead Arafat will not permit the
concessions that the living Arafat might have made."
Did Arafat really
make any concessions? Did he really internalize the idea of two states
and all that entails?
"Arafat made
two historic concessions: He recognized Israel and he recognized the
Green Line. In doing that he accepted our presence here as legitimate
and gave up 78 percent of the territory that constituted pre-1948 Palestine.
Those are monumental concessions. Every additional concession beyond
them was actually impossible. Nevertheless, at Camp David, Arafat made
three more concessions. He agreed to a limited exchange of territory,
he agreed to accept the Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and he
agreed to Israeli control of the Western Wall. But those concessions
were made orally, not in writing, and his successors will find it very
difficult to implement them."
In other words,
we are going back to the situation of "to the last inch,"
to the Green Line itself?
"I think so.
That's what happened with Sadat and also with Hafez Assad. Do you see
an Arab leader who will be able to concede what Arafat did not explicitly
concede? There is no doubt that a compromise on the Temple Mount is
now impossible."
If so, what can
we expect now? Will Abu Mazen and Abu Ala be able to stabilize the situation?
Will they be able to reach some sort of settlement with Israel?
"I have known
Abu Mazen for 20 years and Abu Ala for 15 years. They are both good
people, honest and decent. But if you are a young Palestinian in Jenin
with a rifle and you hear their names, your reaction is, `Who are those
guys, anyway? Who are they to tell me what to do?' So their authority
will be very superficial. It's possible that for the time being they
will get support, because the Palestinian people does not want a civil
war. The trauma of the 1930s is engraved deep in their memory. But this
quiet will necessarily be temporary. It will disappear the moment the
leadership makes some sort of decision. That is the real problem of
Abu Mazen and Abu Ala: They will not be able to make decisions."
Fundamentalist wave
So what you are
saying is that Arafat's death is liable to open the gates of hell?
"Two or three
good people who are somehow trying to hold one another's hand and create
a human chain that will prevent this development are not a solution.
So I foresee two possibilities. The one that frightens me more is a
fundamentalist wave in the Arab world that will wash over the Palestinian
people. That is the most serious concern. But the timetable for that
development is not clear. The Islamic revolution might break out in
another 20 years or it could break out tomorrow morning. It might break
out in Saudi Arabia or Egypt but it could also break out in Gaza or
Ramallah. There's no way to know.
"There is also
another possibility, of a more immediate character. Already today the
Shin Bet [security service] is telling us that there are hundreds of
Palestinians who are ready to become suicide bombers on any given day.
That is the case with Arafat still here, with his restraining influence.
But without Arafat there won't be five or six militant organizations
but 50 or 60, or maybe 500 or 600. And no one will be able to control
them. There will be no restraining entity to curb them. A chaotic situation
of that kind will be terrible for the Palestinians first of all. But
it will also make the lives of Israelis hell."
Aren't you completely
ignoring the fact that the man was a terrorist?
"I was a terrorist,
too. When I was 16, if my commander in Lehi had given me an explosive
belt I would have taken it and I would have blown myself up amid civilians
without any problem. So I don't have a sentimental attitude toward this
matter of terrorism. I understand what violence is. And I know that
a nation that is not offered a political solution resorts to violence.
Therefore it was always clear to me that Arafat would resort to all
means to realize the longings of the Palestinian people. He was not
a violent person. I think he was a nonviolent person. But it was always
clear to me that, as a national leader, he would resort to violence
if the road of peace was blocked for him. I find that self-evident."
Don't you think
that there was something especially violent in the Arafatist struggle?
Wasn't there something pathological in the way the Palestinian national
movement used violence, killing women and children?
"The only pathology
is that allegation. The Algerians, for example, killed only civilians.
Half a million people were killed in the war for Algeria. Immediately
after the liberation 200,000 people were executed as collaborators.
A million French citizens were expelled within days. So in comparison
to the FLN, the war fought by the PLO is almost sterile. The Mau-Mau
in Kenya also went from farm to farm, slaughtering families of whites.
Not to mention Malaysia. And the Kurds. And the Irish. There is nothing
exceptional in the Palestinians' methods of combat."
What about the suicide
bombers? What about Arafat's talk of a million shaheeds - martyrs for
the cause - marching on Jerusalem?
"I take a realistic
view of that phenomenon. I ask myself two questions. Was there any other
way? Could Arafat have prevented it? My answer to both questions is
negative."
And the tragedy
of Camp David? Does Arafat not bear any responsibility at all for the
collapse of the peace process?
"It is Ehud
Barak who bears that responsibility. Barak is the arch-idiot of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is also the arch-criminal. A normal
statesman, a statesman who is not a psychopath, would not say after
the failure of the conference that there is no partner. He bears the
main responsibility for the terrible loss of human life in the past
few years. He is worse than Sharon."
You are generally
a very critical person. Yet when it comes to Yasser Arafat you have
no criticism at all. Did you never have any doubts of any kind about
him? Did you never suspect that he might be using you?
"Of course
he used me. I was perfectly aware of that. In various situations it
was convenient for him to have an Israeli like me by his side. But,
after all, that is why we met: so we could used each other for the cause
that both he and I believed in."
Did you love him?
"I don't think
love is the right word. But there was quite a deep connection between
us."
Did you admire him?
"I held him
in very high regard. As a human being, too. I like patriots. I hate
traitors. And the fact that Arafat is a great Palestinian patriot went
a long way toward determining my attitude toward him. We never talked
about this, but underlying our relationship was the fact that we both
knew what it is to kill as part of a national struggle. We both did
that. He gave orders that caused the death of Israelis, and I was an
Israeli soldier who killed Arabs. But in some way we met at the midpoint
between the two armies. Like those soldiers in the First World War who
came out of their trenches on Christmas Eve and celebrated together
and then went back and killed one another."
Is there any connection
between the fact that in 1948 you took an active part in the expulsion
of Arabs and the destruction of Arab villages, and your later need to
link up with Yasser Arafat?
"Definitely,
definitely. I am very much aware of the fact that the State of Israel,
which I helped establish, is built on a terrible historic injustice.
I also know what I did in the war. I do not deny what I did in the war.
And when I meet a Palestinian I always ask what village he is from.
That is a totally compulsive question for me. And the response I get
often mentions the name of a village in the conquest of which I took
part, and I remember how it looked immediately after the conquest, when
the stoves were still burning and the food on the table was still hot.
"Yasser Arafat
is connected with this because he had pathos. He embodied the pathos
of the Palestinian situation. I had an emotional closeness with that
pathos. Because I, too, like Arafat, do not really have a private life.
I have no life outside political life. And I see the pathos of this
conflict. I see the two nations holding each other by the throat, unable
to let go, not willing to relax their hold. And I want to undo that
embrace of death."
Did you really think
Arafat was a partner to that? Did you really think that he would be
the person to end the conflict?
"It would have
been possible to conclude matters with Yasser Arafat. Believe me, it
could have been concluded. And I knew how. I knew what the conditions
were. I am absolutely convinced that a person like me could have sat
with Arafat for a month and emerged with a peace agreement. That is
why I now have a feeling of a terrible missed national opportunity.
I was certain he would live another 10 years. And for the past four
years he sat here and we let the time go by. We let the opportunity
go by. We lost an opportunity that will not recur. It is a terrible
loss."
Final words
If you had a chance
to hold a farewell conversation with him in Paris, what would you say
to him?
"I would say
a few things. I would tell him, You are a great leader. You did something
for your people that no one else did. And I would say to him, Rest in
peace. If he would wake up for a second and tell me that the thanks
to him the Palestinian people will reach the land of peace and plenty,
that might ease death for him."
Is there a sentiment
of "farewell, friend"?
"Yes, absolutely.
He is a sentimentalist, you know. When he was getting into the helicopter
and blew kisses to the masses, Rahel [Avnery's wife] didn't like it.
She thought it was ridiculous. But I thought otherwise. Because he already
knew he wouldn't come back. That this was the end. And the kisses he
blew to his people symbolically was his farewell. People who were there
had tears in their eyes."
Are there tears
in your eyes, too?
"I never cry.
I didn't cry when my father died. I didn't cry when my mother died.
But if I were a crying person, I would cry."
You are generally
a very cold person, but in the past few days the grief suddenly grabbed
you, didn't it?
"Without any
doubt. We did so much together. And an emotional bond was formed that
isn't easy to describe. So yesterday I found myself quoting what Hamlet
said about his father: `He was a man, take him for all and all, I shall
not look upon his like again.'"
So that is the feeling
now? Missing him?
"When Issam
Sartawi [an adviser to Arafat who held talks with Israelis in the 1970s]
was assassinated, [Austrian chancellor Bruno] Kreisky told me, `It is
very tragic when a friend dies, because at my age one doesn't make new
friends.' And now a friend has died. But beyond that, I know there will
not be another like him. There will not be another with whom I will
have the same relationship. We will go on working. We will work with
the new Palestinian leadership. But it won't be the same thing. The
world without Arafat will not be the same world. Not for Israel and
not for me."
Also
Visit Our Uri Avnery Archive