There is, despite everything, a palpable feeling of loss and grief in Ramallah — mixed with massive amounts of cynicism and fresh despair — on the fifth anniversary of the death, in a Paris hospital, of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Palestinian television is doing live coverage of the main commemoration ceremony which is being held in the Palestinian presidential headquarters in Ramallah, the Muqata’a.
There are almost as many people — if not more — than five years ago, crowding in the public space that surrounds the building built by the British as they consolidated their military administration of the region at the end of the First World War. But this time, there are some chairs, more flags and partisan (Fatah, mainly) baseball caps, and more women and children — who were almost completely absent in the mob scene at the funeral. There are also, of course, pictures of the current Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), sometimes side-by-side with Arafat, and sometimes alone…
The scene is clearly more organized, and less spontaneous, than the raw chaos of the funeral that took place here five years ago, when Arafat’s body was returned for burial after a final journey from Paris to Egypt, then to Jordan, then in a helicopter that barely managed to land, because of the masses of people on the ground.
Five years ago, the Muqta’a was a bombarded ruin, with Arafat and his loyalist aides and security living in crowded and unhealthy conditions, under seige and disgraceful threats issued on a regular basis from Israeli leaders vowing to go in and finish him off. Whole wings of the building were crumbling. Security guards were sitting on plastic chairs in rooms whose outer walls had fallen down. Cars crushed by Îsraeli tanks remained on the outskirts of the compound. The area that had been used, before Israel’s reincursion into the West Bank in 2002, as a helicopter landing pad, was dotted with rusting oil barrels filled with cement and iron rods sticking up into the sky — to prevent an Israeli helicopter assault, Palestinian officials explained.
In these circumstances, alone and largely ignored except for visits of friends at Friday prayers, Arafat’s health deteriorated in the last weeks of his life, from still-unexplained causes, and in a final gesture of what appeared to be mercy, he was evacuated by helicopter to Jordan, then to a Paris hospital, where he soon died.
[In the wake of an emotional live report from the scene of a weakened Arafat’s medical evacuation to Paris, the Israeli government insisted on — and obtained — the transfer of a BBC Correspondent out of the area. A National Public Radio (NPR) journalist was also reassigned at about the same time…]
At 11:30, an honor guard rushed into formation at the actual mausuleum, on the Muqata’a grounds, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) – alone, with a full kuffieyeh draped around his neck, prayed the Fatiha, at the start of the commemoration. The chief personal presidential body guard, in a grey suit and sunglasses, with a bushy black mustache, stood behind Abu Mazen, in a corner of the room, and prayed the Fatiha, as well. Just visible, in the doorway, was the President’s eldest surviving son, Yasser Abbas, wearing a grey dark suit and dress coat with kuffiyeh-print scarf hovering over the event with vigilance and concern.
Abu Mazen then walked briskly, with guards all around him, to his seat in the front row of seats, where Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (wearing, like all the other dignitaries in the front row, a keffiyeh-print narrow scarf around his neck) was seated to the president’s right. Hussein Hussein brought forward and placed before the president a small table, with a bottle of water, and what looked like the pages of a speech. Bodyguards in suits stood in front of the president, facing the crowd. The nephew of the late Yasser Arafat, Nasser al-Qudwa (former leader of The General Union of Palestinian Students in Germany, then a diplomat at the PLO Mission to the UN in New York, then Ambassador, and then Foreign Minister — and married to a French citizen working for the UN — at the time of his uncle’s death, who is now President of the Yasser Arafat Foundation) was seated at Abu Mazen’s left, and beside him was Hussein ash-Sheikh, head of the Palestinian Civil Affairs Ministry. Next to ash-Sheikh is Jibril Rajoub, former head of Palestinian Preventive Security in the West Bank who was fired by Arafat for a questionable performance during the 2002 Israeli re-invasion of West Bank Cities, and currently the very succcessful head of the Palestinian Football federation, and the Palestinian Olympic Committee. Yasser Abed Rabbo, formerly the main spokesman of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) now the Executive Secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
The entire crowd then prayed the Fatiha.
Nasser Al-Qudwa made the first speech… He said that the people of Gaza were present (at least spiritually, with their minds and hearts) at this fifth anniversary commemoration (despite the apparent prohibition of the Hamas leaders in Gaza of any link to the Ramallah ceremony). Ma’an news agency later reported that he “demanded recognition of a Palestinian state”.
In the speculative rumors about possible replacements for the present Palestinian president — who has no obvious successor — Nasser Al-Qudwa’s name is often mentioned. He is said to be a favorite in Fatah circles, and was elected to the Fatah Central Committee in elections in Bethlehem in August — the first in nearly two decades. However, he is a cautious man, and is playing a respectful role, calculated for the long run.
[Haaretz later reports, here, that Al-Qudwa said, about the circumstances of Arafat’s death, that “Each expert we consulted explained that even a simple poison produced by an average scientist would be difficult to identify by the most experienced scientists. I can’t tell for sure that he was murdered by the Israelis. I can’t refute that hypothesis because doctors couldn’t refute it”. Nasser Al-Qudwa, at that time the Palestinian Foreign Minister, and a French citizen by marriage, was given (a copy of) the apparently voluminous official French medical report right after his uncle’s death, and brought it back to Ramallah in his suitcase without any searching or interference. It is supposedly in the process of being examined since then…]
Abu Mazen puts on a baseball cap with a kuffiyeh print visor, and the colors of the Palestinian flag on the top, and sits with his arms and legs crossed. [No, in a later camera cut-away, I see that the visor is red with a pointed end, just like in the Palestinian flag, and that the other color of the flag (white, green, and black) are also represented. Yasser Abbas is seated in the row behind his father, one seat to the left, next to the main personal body guard, now wearing the same baseball cap… it might be his younger brother, Tareq, who is seated one more seat to the left …]
In the sun, Nasser Al-Qudwa puts on a baseball cap.
Mohammad Dahlan — without any kuffiyeh-scarf, and also capless, his coiffed dark hair glistening in the sunlight — was seated about twenty seats away to Abu Mazen’s right, but still in the front row. Mohammed Mustafa, the President’s economic adviser, and chairman of the Palestine Investment Fund (PIF), was about the same number of seats away, on the other side.
Two speakers who fill in between main events chant political slogans in a loud and urgent tone.
A main speaker (Abu Layla) now speaks in the same loud and urgent tone, speaking about Jerusalem.
There is a beacon on the tower in Arafat’s mausuleum with an emerald green laser light that shines, at night, in the direction of Jerusalem, where Arafat was to be buried — and where he will be buried, it is vowed, when East Jerusalem is freed from The Israeli occupation that began in June 1967, and becomes the capital of the hoped-for future Palestinian state.
Mohammed Barakeh, Israeli-Arab-Palestinian political party leader and an elected member of the Israeli Knesset, now speaks in a loud and urgent tone, reminding the crowd of the Palestinian cities in Israel …
Now, Sarah, a young and prematurely political Palestinian girl in a long dress with Palestinian embroidery (red), and a full kuffiyeh around her shoulders, speaks also in standard loud and urgent tone … crying, shouting, shaking her finger … her voice cracking when she mentions Abu Ammar (Yasser Arafat), and Jerusalem …
Cut-aways by Palestinian TV (the speeches are getting long and boring) are showing some kind of a balloon that looks like a soccer ball with images of Yasser Arafat printed on it, hovering over the crowd. In the memorial building housing Arafat’s grave, ordinary citizens are now praying the Fatiha.
Finally, Mahmoud Abbas is announced, with some shouted words of praise. The Palestinian TV song praising him is played as he walks toward the stage. The young girl in the dress with Palestinian embroidery preceeds him. An orthodox Jew is allowed to rush forward to shake Abu Mazen’s hand just before he gets to the stairs leading up to the stage — no doubt, a member of Neurei Karta (the orthodox Jewish group that is against Israel — though they live in Israel — and against Zionism because they believe Israel should not have been founded before the arrival of the messiah)…
There are security men in suits and ties on the stage and on both sides, as Abu Mazen speech.
His speech is interrupted by the Arafat-era chant, “With our soul, with our blood, we support you…”
Today, November 11th, is also the date that Europe (Britain, in particular) commemorates the armistice in the First World War — which set the stage for the current cruel situation in what became, as a result of the First World War, the former British Mandate of Palestine. The League of Nations in Geneva — the “international community” at the time — awarded Palestine to the British without any question or debate, along with a prescription (taken from an unofficial letter from British Foreign Secretary to a member of the British Parliament) that Jewish immigration to Palestine must be assisted and facilitated. Every year, Britain had to report to the League of Nations about how it was helping Jewish immigration. Then, when Britain later wanted to wash its hands of the situation, it asked the United Nations (founded in the wake of the Second World War), how to dispose of the territory, and the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into two states “one Jewish and one Arab”, and to give Jerusalem a special character under UN administration… Until now, the “Arab” state has not come into being in Palestine, although in a few days’ time (15 November), Ramallah will be celebrating “Independence Day”, the date that Yasser Arafat proclaimed, at a meeting of the PLO’s Palestine National Council convened in Algiers, the Independent State of Palestine within the 1967 borders, with (East) Jerusalem as its capital.
Mahmoud Abbas just said that within two weeks of that declaration, the State of Palestine was recognized by 105 states.
Yet, it still is not a reality…
A few minutes earlier, Abu Mazen asked: what is new in saying we want a state in the borders of the territory occupied in the June 1967 war? What is new in saying that East Jerusalem is the capital of our future state? What is new….?
And, on Twitter, the IDF announced that “#IDF forces arrested 12 #Palestinian men wanted for suspected terrorist activities in Judea and Samaria” — i.e., in the West Bank. This happens almost every night. No one even asks what happens to these arrested persons, they are just added to the over 11,000 Palestinians currently being held in Israeli detention for opposing the Israeli occupation.
In his speech, Abu Mazen now asks: “Can we return to negotiations with Israel after all that”? “Can we?” (“Mumkin?”) “Can we?” There is not much response from the crowd. Then, he says, he is not ready to do that — and there is some applause and whistling. Then some organized chanting …
His mentions of Gaza draw some greater response … Now he is speaking of the elections that he called for next January 24, 2010. He asks the crowd not to interrupt him. He appears to take on Aziz Dweik, the Hamas-affiliated (former) speaker of the Palestine Legislative Council (according to the Palestinian unfinished Constitution, Dweik would have replaced Abbas as President in the event of any inability to serve…) He now criticizes Shaul Mofaz’s suggestion that he would like to speak with Hamas officials … He calls on Hamas once again to join the Paletinian body politic (and return the situation in Gaza to the status quo ante…)
Haaretz later reports that Abbas said: “On this occasion, I don’t want to talk again about my wish not to run in the upcoming elections … As I said in my speech, there will be other decisions … that I will take in light of coming developments” . This Haaretz story can be viewed in full here.
Ma’an News Agency later reports Abbas said he would continue to refuse to return to peace talks with Israel (that the Palestinians cut off during the IDF military operation against Gaza last winter) unless there is a halt to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. “I will make decisions as the situation develops”, Abbas said (which is pretty much how he has normally operated so far), and he stated that although “a state with temporary boundaries exists as a choice within the Roadmap plan, but we are declining to take that choice.” This Ma’an report can be viewed in full here.
“Long Live Palestine”, Abbas concludes, as Palestinian TV plays their special theme song praising him. On his way back to his seat, a woman in a black robe and beige headscarf importunes him, until she is finally pushed away by security. Sitting down, he drinks a glass of water, and puts back on his baseball cap. His son, Yasser Abbas, still sits almost directly behind his father, still wearing a matching Palestinian emblem baseball cap.
In the last 12 hours, the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (soon to visit the region), former British Prime Minister and now Quartet envoy Tony Blair, and the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry have all urged Abbas to go back on his decision, announced last Thursday, not to run again for the Presidency of the Palestinian Authority. According to a statement released by the UN SCO office in Jerusalem, Serry said after his meeting with Abu Mazen last night that: “I conveyed to President Abbas the Secretary-General’s strong support for his leadership. But it is clear that this precious asset is now in jeopardy. I believe President Abbas’ announcement last week is a loud and clear wake-up call. I repeat the Secretary-General’s call for a freeze on all settlement activity. Either we go forward decisively to a two State solution in accordance with Security Council resolutions, or we risk sliding backwards.”
A singer entertains the crowd. Abu Mazen is seated. What are they waiting for? Two small boys come forward to greet the president, then are invited to go back to their father or whoever is with them…
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Earlier in the day, according to a report by Ma’an News Agency, there was a debate among Palestinian factional leaders on a Ramallah radio station about “prospects for a new declaration”. Ma’an reported that Fatah’s Abdullah Abdullah said: “The Palestinian people’s right of self determination has been recognized by UN resolutions, yet there are certain things that are required to guarantee the protection and sovereignty of a Palestinian state if it is announced. We don’t need to bounce into the air and become dependent on the occupation’s mercy … In order to materialize a unilateral Palestinian state, we need a two-track approach; to build the state’s institutions and administrative bodies and to ask the UN for permission to exercise our right in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions 1397, and 2515 related to the Road Map plan.”
Kayid Al-Ghoul, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) politburo member, said that a Palestinian state was mistakenly thought to be the natural outcome of the Oslo Accords: “If a Palestinian state is unilaterally announced, Israel must be treated as an occupier, and the international community should stand in the face of Israel … The announcement should be based on a united Palestinian decision, and thus there must be serious dialogue before that announcement in order to end rivalry between the Palestinians. Furthermore, there should be contacts with Arab and foreign countries to urge them to help provide the needed atmosphere and requirements. This announcement is more like a political battle against occupation.”
Saleh Zeidan of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), said, according to Ma’an, that “a declaration should be made in appropriate atmosphere to avoid the possibility of a state with interim borders. The current situation, he said, is different from the situation in 1999. The atmosphere then was much more suitable for announcement of a Palestinian state. We need a comprehensive political review, and the current situation is not appropriate for that”.
Palestinian People’s Party (PPP) Secretary-General Bassam As-Salihi said that as negotiations with Israel have failed, there should now be agreement on a strategy based on unilaterally declaring an independent sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, as his party had long recommended. Ma’an said that “He called for the establishment of a constituent assembly for the Palestinian state from members of the PLO’s Central Council, and the Palestinian Legislative Council”.
And Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, head of Al-Mubadara, the Palestinian National Initiative, says that his party “is supportive of the idea of a unilateral declaration, as long as it is differentiated from Israeli proposals for a Palestinian state with ‘temporary borders’ on about 40% of the West Bank … He also said Palestinians should be wary of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal for economic peace as alternative to real peace.
These views were reported by Ma’an News Agency here .
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Back in the Muqata’a, Abu Mazen gets up to leave,and his security men in suits move forward, displacing officials who are gathering around him. The singer comes to greet Abu Mazen as he moves out. The crowd remains in place…
