Arafat will be remembered as the leader who mastered the art of political survival.

The seriousness of the situation could be manifested in initial reports hinting that a care-taker government led by three senior officials – Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia; his predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas and Salim Zaanoun, head of the Palestinian parliament – would run the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) under a decree Arafat issued before he fell sick.^[1] In addition, for the first time since the uprising erupted in September 2000, Arafat’s wife, Suha, left her luxurious residence in Paris to see her husband in Ramallah. Interestingly, speculations emerged to whether Israeli authorities would allow Arafat back to his Ramallah compound, should he decide to leave for treatment abroad.

As Yasser Arafat left Ramallah to seek treatment in Paris , there was a general aura of apprehension in the Palestinian street and feelings of uncertainty pervaded the atmosphere as many began to contemplate the repercussions of Arafat’s potential departure from the political scene. Nevertheless, in an indication of how Arafat’s popularity had plummeted in recent months, Arafat’s low-keyed departure from his compound stands in stark contrast to his triumphant arrival in the Palestinian territories a decade earlier, when tens of thousands of Palestinians cheered as his motorcade drove through the Gaza Strip.^[2]

Even with Arafat still alive, chaos has taken hold of much of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the past months, gunmen have routinely seized government offices and held various employees hostage. Moreover, security agents loyal to Gaza strongman, Mohamed Dahlan, who is known to have presidential ambitions, have clashed with another security chief, Moussa Arafat, a relative of Yasser Arafat.^[3] Without Arafat’s leadership role, simmering political rivalries within the Fateh movement itself are likely to erupt. The old guard – the “made-in-Tunis regime” that was allowed to return with Arafat from exile in the 1990s – would likely clash with younger Fateh activists who remained in the West Bank and Gaza, fought Israel in two uprisings, and currently demand their share in political power.

More importantly, the Palestinian movements represented by the Jenin Martyrs’ Brigades, the Al-Aqsa Matrys’ Brigades, the Abu Rish Brigades, Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, as well as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have long objected to the cronyism and corruption that have been rampant in the Palestinian territories since Arafat came from exile. It is estimated that between 2000 and 2003, the European Union provided $12 million dollars a month to the PA without proper controls. In fact, as early as 1997, a Palestinian internal audit revealed that $359 million, out of a budget of $880 million, had disappeared. Surprisingly, while many Palestinians live in utter poverty and unemployment levels have reached almost 70% in the Gaza Strip, the German public broadcaster ARD claimed that in September 2001, Arafat added $5.1 million – a sum that might have included international aid money – to his personal account in the Arab Bank in Cairo .^[4]

In many ways, the Al-Aqsa Intifada could also be seen as a popular message of rejection to not only Israeli practices, but to the Palestinian Authority (PA) – the architect of Oslo . In fact, during the Oslo decade, the PA worked towards the establishment of another Middle Eastern police state with US and Israeli support. Even during the Intifada, Palestinian policemen shot down their own people with live ammunition when Palestinians rallied in the thousands to support Osama bin Laden and denounce the US attacks on Afghanistan . Yasser Arafat, fearing he would lose the sympathy of President George W. Bush, ordered a crackdown which killed three Palestinians and injured 50 more in clashes.^[5]

The corruption, cronyism and lack of consideration for the rule of law are magnified by the number of security forces that exist inside Palestine – a PA policeman for every 60 Palestinians.^[6] As the late Edward Said rightly noted : “As for the Oslo ‘peace process’ that began in 1993, it has simply re-packaged the occupation, offering a token 18% of the lands seized in 1967 to the corrupt Vichy-like Authority of Arafat, whose mandate has essentially been to police and tax his people on Israel’s behalf.”^[7]

Throughout the past several years, Arafat had produced several declarations calling on his people to end armed resistance against Israelis and his security forces have cooperated on many occasions with Israeli occupation authorities. PA officials have closed down several Hamas and Islamic Jihad offices – even those that dealt with providing welfare and education to the Palestinian public.^[8] Arafat himself announced several times that his government helped prevent a wave of revenge attacks on Israel in the aftermath of the Israeli assassination of Hamas leaders, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi.^[9] 

If Arafat were to die, both the Israelis and the Americans will be left with bleak alternatives. Ultimately, without Arafat’s unifying influence, Israel and the US might find themselves facing a power vacuum and potentially bloody struggles between various Palestinian factions. Shmuel Bar, of the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzliya, explains: “When Arafat dies, the PLO will die with him. Then we can take our pick of Balkanization, Lebanonization, or Afghanistanization.”^[10]

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